Retired in Toeland

The front tires pulled, slipped and spun against an asphalt, that wasn't. I shoved it into reverse.. Wheeeeeeee... the smell of something burning! Under the wet, under the white, under the weather. We muddled, 6 inches away, stranded. Land of the unplowed..
My passenger was Arlie John `straight edge coffee drinker' Carstens Our destination? A residential location renowned as the highest, steepest part of Tahoe Donner. The road that normally takes 3 minutes to travel took 20. We ultimately arrived via a back way; a flatter way. Stepping down from a high snowpack and entering through a door. Tall vaulted ceilings that held the condensation sapped windows projected a gray sky. Their sills held a line. A line that was long, a line that was endless. Empty bottles of rum. Consumed, they belonged there. Below, glowed a man, a smile and a smirk, hardly a jerk... Jeff Toland.

"Come in, my name is Jeff." Toland introduces himself to Arlie.
"My house is kinda crazy, we get drunk and break glass."
"Is this Patsy Kline?" Arlie asks as the music spills from the stereo.
"Yeah, this is good drinkin music," replied Toland.
"Especially when you got cabin fever," blurted a gentlemen affixed to the couch sitting next to me who vaguely introduced himself to us as Keith. He continued, "It's been raining and snowing for 3 weeks up here, we have yet to see the sun." Looking towards the bottles in the windows, Arlie was amazed. He interjected, "You drank all of those, yourself?!" Toland responded with a nod and a smile, "In less than a month." Arlie's face turned sour, he shook his head and commented, "I hope you drink a lot of water when your drinkin' that stuff.. That shit will give you an ulcer!"
Jeff casually responded, "Naw, it's already in the alcohol. I'm a pro, I got it goin' on. I mix it with Coke(TM)."
Arlie was blown away, "Wow, that's fuckin' harsh!" Dreary icons. The stereo's volume was muted. The Weather Channel became the primary focus. Five more days of stormy weather flashed on the screen and
Toland planned his dismal future accordingly. "We're gonna try and go ride in this shit today at Boreal in a few hours." "Have you guys built any quarter pipes out in the yard?," I asked. "No, but we got that snowmobile out there....let's go check it out." Toland was
motivated. The weather changed from rain to snow, warm one minute, cold the next. As we scoped out the snowmobile, it was buried. "My other roomate Antho has the key and he's not here," Jeff griped as he produced a wood stick. I started eyeing the driveway for a hikeable bank hit.
EEEeerrrrrggg!! Behind me growled a musclebound tan-colored dog that resembled a pitbull. "This is Earth, Antho's dog. Come-ear Earth!" yelled Jeff with his right arm over his head.
Spontaneously the beast jumped 5 feet vertically to fetch his firewood sized treat. Within minutes, the animal frolicked in the snow, chawing away on the
wood 'til his gums bled.
Booosh!.. The dog was oblivious, but we weren't; chunks of snow were melting out of the trees coming only inches from our heads. Jeff called out, "Let's go back inside, it's wet out here." We rushed indoors just in time for him to semi-karaoke to live music by Johnny Cash, "I've been flushed from the bathroom of your heart..."
The stereo prevailed. A T.V., ironically in synch., depicted houses being washed away by flash-flood rivers.
"I got all my roomates into this music, it's bad!" Suddenly Jeff was intrigued with the images, "Is this Sac.?"
The T.V., still on the Weather Channel, showed segments of Northern California's Rio Linda; a victim of severe rain fall. Toland added his two cents, "That's `Spinda Linda' Meth capital, now their Meth labs are all shot...(laughing)."
I suddenly changed into journalist-boy mode and sprouted some questions:

C.C.-Have you been snowboarding lately?
J.T.- I got a three day ticket at Squaw last week and I've went riding with Rocket (Reeves). Then I rode with (Jason) Pata on Granite Peak at Squaw, we hiked up and checked it out.

C.C.- When did you get into snowboarding?
J.T.- I tried it years ago when Don Bostick worked at Go Skate. They had a deal for thirty dollars: A bus ride, a lunch and lift tickets to Donner Ski Ranch. I tried it, but I didn't really like it. I kinda got mad at all the day-glow and stuff. I was a little punk rock kid so I was "Anti" and against it for years. Then I started hangin' out with Card (Cardiel) and them, which I did before, but I remember seeing footage of him doing backflips and stuff. I started boarding with him and he wasn't wearing day-glow. Then when we had the big storms like two years ago, I started comin' up a lot with Noah (Salasnek) and Matt Kennedy. Noah hooked me up with a board and Gerry and Artie at FLF gave me boots and bindings. They helped me out. That's when I started riding.

C.C.- When did you start skating pro, like when did you start skating for Chapter 7?
J.T.- I turned pro for Think. That was about 1990. Faustodecided to put me on and turn me Pro for the "Disco in Frisco" contest.

C.C.- Was that the first one?
J.T.- No, I think it was the third one. Butterfly's from hell, I was so scared. Then I just got burned out, it became a job doing skateboarding stuff after that. Except for travelling.

C.C.- Were you making all of your money from skating?
J.T.- I was makin' money at that. I really didn't make that good of money from Think. They were a small company starting out and I was getting like $250.00 a month or something. But I lived at home, at my Grandmas' house in Sac., it didn't matter.

C.C.- Did you used to skate at the Daily Grind all the time. Have you
lately?
J.T.- I broke my hand there during the summer. Five minutes of skating on Matt Kennedy's birthday, I broke my hand pretty bad. Then I was riding with my cast on for a while.

Arlie breaks into the Q. and A. routine:

Arlie- Do you know Lee Petersen who rides for Foundation?
J.T.- No. Wait, I think I've met him.

Arlie- Lee Petersen is Eighteen years old and three months ago, he quit skating
pro for Foundation and moved back home to Seattle, which is where I'm from. He
and I make punk rock music together, and he avoids everybody.
J.T.- My friends down around the corner have a bunch of equipment, they're over
there playing right now. I like to go over there sometimes, get drunk and scream... "As I step down from the train.." Toland sings to more classic
Johnny Cash lyrics then continues..
"I like to avoid the total snowboarding attitudes sometimes...it seems cooler with all the people that I know, like Jamie(Lynn) and stuff, Ranky (Mike Ranquet) and all those guys. Those guys are super cool! They're down to earth and riding with `em is fun you know. Like Rocket, that's my drinkin' partner, he likes to get me scared when I go riding with him.

Arlie- Rocket's been riding our home mountain a lot, this place called Alpental in Washington...

C.C.- What kind of stuff have you been boarding Toland, have you just been freeriding?
J.T.- Yeah freeriding. I don't like parks that much, especially Jibassic, I don't like landing on flat. I'd rather go out and find stuff, it's so much more fun. Just go cruise around. Also, you're just by yourself, basically. You don't have a bunch of kids hangin' around. I hate when there's a pack of guys and they all stand above the kicker, I call `em "Packistands."

C.C.- Tell me how you came up with the name "Jibassic Park."
J.T.- I was at Noah's one night and we were all just sitting around this table all hammered and I saw this newspaper with this ad that said "Name this
Snowboard park and win a season pass." So I thought "Jib" and at the time Jurassic Park was like the big thing and I was all "Jibassic Park." So I told Brett Sigur who worked at Boreal at the time and he was stoked. Boreal liked it, and I won.

Arlie- That name get's gurned so hard, all over the country.
J.T.- It's just a joke too. "Jibassic", Jib bro! Stances twenty-eight wide and shit..Hahahaha.

Everyone starts laughing..

Arlie-So did you win a free season pass?
J.T.- Yeah, I got a free pass.

Arlie- So you are psyched!
J.T.- Yeah, but now I gotta work there, cause I'm not pro anymore.

Arlie- What's it like workin' there.
J.T.- Overworked, underpaid. But it's cool though. My roomate Antho is my supervisor. I work with him doin' whatever. My manager is my friend Pete, and this guy Mike Box, the main guy, is totally cool.

C.C.- Back to skating, what kind of skating do you like to do. Vert, pools, street?
J.T.- When I skate vert, I always get hurt. I like pools but I never can find them, the N-Men won't tell me where they're at. They know millions. Street and obstacle skating is fun. And parks.

C.C.- Do you skate the Truckee Ramp down the street?
J.T.- It's too cold for me to fall right now, that would hurt. I don't think I could get up...The Weather Channel continued to broadcast weather info
into our faces. We were trying to find a place in Tahoe to ride that didn't require us wearing rain/wetsuits. Jeff had a brief idea, "I think I'm still gonna go to Boreal today and lay down turns, try and do some circles. Keith (Fatboy: area code 90202 as Jeff calls him) interjected, "You're gonna have to start at the top and bomb it to make it to the bottom."

Arlie- That sounds so gross! There's a place in Washington called Hyak that's flat like that.
J.T.- I'm ready to go, I'll just hold my nose through the rain and point it down the mountain.

C.C.- Let's just go check out the neighborhood for driveway quarterpipes.

Arlie- The best thing though is that you guys like Patsy Kline and Johnny Cash, that's fuckin' punk!

J.T.- And Hank Williams Junior and Senior.

Arlie- I'm totally serious, that's so hot, that's so good. The world is a fucked up place when the world is psyched on The Offspring. It makes me soooo mad! I don't even watch MTV anymore, I watch TNN. They have drag racing and drag boat racing. And the Discovery Channel; they have a show called Weekday Wings, with World War 2 planes. All kinds of planes...

After walking around the neighborhood in search of terrain to ride, we came up empty. The next thing I knew we were back at the house again while Toland's roomate, Christin, did the basic chores of cleaning, laundry and vacuuming. Jeff felt inclined to show us his bedroom and his bed, the "Tollbooth"-a basic mattress with a door on the side of it to avoid noise and roomates while he sleeps his days away. He also has a rad pair of boots with chains attached for icey conditions he called his chain-shoes. All in all, it was a fun lazy day. Arlie and I bailed to the nearest restaurant
to eat. Jeff concluded, all sprawled out on the couch, with, "Well guys, I guess I'm not goin' to Boreal now. What the hell am I gonna do?"
The vacuum sucked glass as Christin labored and made circles around the Toland-couch. "I guess just sit here, I don't even have beer!"


Earth, Jeff and his bottles and bong.
Story by Chris Carnel, SK8 Photo by Joey Washburn
All other photos by Chris.

Tolandisms-

On his chain shoes: Now I can walk up to any party around here and not do one trouble-shuffle. While everyone was eating shit falling down at this one steep party I just went zooommmpp... right up to the keg.

On Hank Williams Jr.: "You might be a redneck if you think God looks a lot like Hank Williams Jr. and I think he is pretty much God, so I'm a redneck, I guess."

On Earth, who only goes after real sticks thrown to him: "Earth is smart, he's like a real person."

Brett Sigur, friend of Toland's the Santa Cruz team manager at the Santa Cruz night shoot at Boreal: "See, I knew it would happen! Toland got (Chris) Roach drinkin' in the bar, all shitfaced." Minutes later the comedy team was seen nightskiing. Yes, on Skiis.

"I retired from Pro skating into Civilian life about three months ago." When I ran into him working at Boreal one night. Actually he was drinking in the Bar and hadn't gone to work yet." -Chris Carnel

To Sonny at a recent Trade Show: "Sonny, I quit being a quitter."

"Tony Hawk? You mean Bony Cock."

Two observations on the lift at DSR with Sonny and John: "That drop, that's K-12" (kindergarten through 12th grade)

Watching someone eats shit face first: "Scorp." (as in scorpion, when his board comes back behind him and hits him in the back)