Ask yourself one question, when you see a kid skateboarding in a public area do you automatically think he is a punk or just a kid skating. In our town I have a feeling the answer is punk. Our youngest son has been skateboarding since he was 5. Dustin taught him to skate and they had big “Pro” dreams until Dustin died. Since then our youngest is more passionate than ever about skateboarding. He still has “Pro” dreams, but he has difficulty finding places to practice. Good blacktop is hard to find, especially when most of it consists of parking lots in which he must wait patiently for the businesses to close in order to skate. He is very respectful in not bothering other people, vehicles or surrounding property. He just wants to skate.

The summer has been full of stops by the police and area officials telling him he can not use their property. We live down the road from the township and across from the local park. The township kicks him out of the parking lot even after they are closed for business. The township park across the street only has a small parking lot to skate in and it is always full of cars. The local shopping center has a few small places that are not traveled by people or vehicles, but he was told he would destroy property so he could not skate there either.

I understand some of this to a point, there are kids that “skate” who are punks, but our kid just wants to skate! That is in his heart, it is all he talks about…being like Ryan Sheckler ….one day. The nearest skate park to us is over 30 miles away, so he just continues to look for a place where the people are nice and they have good blacktop….