Despite many years in skateboarding, I didn't know anything about pool skating. I thought it might be just another old way of skating, but meeting a pool skater by the name of Steve Alba changed my perspective. His passion for skateboarding pools was beyond my imagination. The process of getting to skateboard in pools is just unbelievable. These days he searches for new pools by Cessna from above, because they are hard to find from the ground.   In the empty pools he took me to, I saw the America I liked and the American pity. The dried up pools under the white California sun was so breathtaking that I just had to gaze, without even holding a camera.		Still, the empty pools concealed a certain sadness. Pools where you can skate are usually at houses that have been abandoned. The skateboarders in such abandoned places are like a ray of light. Ever since I discovered the landscape of pools, I gradually started to feel that the answer to my search is here. Wheels have left their traces in the beautiful and sad landscape. Such a landscape surprisingly makes sense to me.         -Taro Hirano