My Dad Learns to Skate

My dad has never ridden a skateboard. He's forty-two, he works in an office, and he walks very carefully on wet floors. So I laughed when he said, "This vacation, I'm going to learn to skate." I laughed so hard that my spoon fell into my cereal.

On the first afternoon of the May vacation, he came to the skate park with my old board and a new helmet. The helmet was bright green. Two boys from our street, Jaylen and Kiko, stopped and stared at him. "Is that your dad, Elian?" Kiko asked. I wanted to disappear.

Dad put one foot on the board. The board rolled away without him, and he sat down suddenly on the concrete. Jaylen didn't laugh. He walked over slowly and said, "Sir, you're standing wrong. Bend your knees." My dad has never listened to me the way he listened to that twelve-year-old.

After that, the boys became his teachers. Kiko showed him how to push gently with his back foot. Jaylen taught him how to fall: "Knees first, then hands. Never your head." Dad fell nine times on the second afternoon and only four times on the third. On the fourth, he came back with knee pads. On the fifth, he rolled all the way across the park, slowly but without falling once.

On the sixth afternoon, he pointed at the small ramp. "Watch this, Elian," he said. I couldn't look, and then I couldn't stop looking. He rolled down the ramp, wobbled badly, waved his arms like a bird and... stayed on the board. Jaylen and Kiko cheered loudly. I've never heard my dad shout so happily. I was proud of him, and I didn't feel embarrassed at all.

Yesterday I went to the skate park alone. Dad was already there, in his green helmet and his knee pads. Next to him stood a man in office shoes, holding a skateboard nervously. "Bend your knees," my dad told him seriously. "And never your head."