“I found myself having to go through obstacles.”
I was over an hour away from home now. Face to face with a steep hill and Converse for hiking shoes. There was one thought in my mind, “Where am I going to find graffiiti on a green hill?” However, I did not question this newly introduced young man. I proceeded behind him. Having a military background I assumed the steep hill wouldn’t be a problem to climb. About five minutes into the hike, I found myself on my knees, sliding all the way back down. I was able to grab hold of some branches until he climbed down to help me. He put his hand out for me to grab. This was the first of many times that I would learn to trust this complete stranger. Once we finally reached the top of the hill there was a barbed wire fence. He jumped over it, and I crawled under. To my amazement, behind this fence there was a cement circular hole in the ground. Now, there was another obstacle. The ladder to get into the cement hole was missing. It was about 15 feet high of nothing but solid cement. It had also been raining, so there was about another 2 feet of water at the bottom. We found a wooden beam that he used to climbed down into the cement hole. It was now my turn. I was nervous about falling into the water and afraid of heights. He told me to slide down and he would then grab me. I gathered my composure and gave this stranger another chance at trust. He caught me. Once inside, the results were astonishing. At first, I was amazed by all the colors. Then, by all the aerosol cans.
We proceeded to have many more adventures through out the day. I found myself at a rundown factory that was fenced off to the public. Fortunately, unlike so many others, I didn’t have to jump the fence. A security guard was nice enough to let us in for about ten munites. Next, I found myself on train tracks. Of course, there were moving trains so we had to becareful. A few other places we went were downtown Los Angeles and East Los Angeles. It became apparent that there were certain things that came with graffiti. The location didn’t matter. There would almost always be aerosol cans and lids every where. There would also be some type of danger.
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