'Skateboarding has taught me the virtues of patience'

I got my first skateboard when I was 4. I could barely stand up on it without falling off. I put my pads on and kept trying. My mom took me to the Auburn skate park when I was 7 and I couldn't ride down into the bowl. I couldn't believe the tricks the older kids could do. It looked like so much fun, so I started practicing every day until I could roll into the bowl like the teenagers. I was surprised when the teenagers I didn't even know would encourage me and give me tips. When I first started skateboarding, I would get mad if I couldn't learn a trick. Skateboarding has taught me to be more patient and that you have to practice and have patience to get good at something. The things I have learned from skateboarding have helped me in the other sports I play like soccer and basketball. I have also improved my balance and have gotten in better shape. I am healthier and stronger. Skateboarding has really helped me get better at snowboarding. I want to be on the snowboard team, when I am old enough. I wish we could have a skate park in Colfax so me and my friends could walk there from our houses. There are days I can't go because my mom has too much homework or stuff to do around the house and doesn't have time to drive me all the way to Auburn's or Grass Valley's skate park or sit there while I skateboard. I hope the Sierra Vista Community Center will allow the skate park to be built there. It is very close to my house and I already go to the youth center after school on Fridays. The youth center is a lot of fun to go to. Having the skate park there would be so great for all the kids in town. Maybe my mom would let me go there more often if the skate park was there too. I wish more parents and kids would come to the skate park committee meetings at Riders Union, and the community meetings at the Sierra Vista Community Center and city council. There are lots of kids at school and on my sports teams that want a skate park in Colfax but I don't see them or their parents at any of the meetings. I know there are a lot of people who volunteer like Coach Robinson, my soccer coach, and Thad Little and Jason Howes from the skate park committee, but if everyone who really wants the skate park helped get it built, then maybe Colfax will have a skate park before I graduate from high school.There is not much for the kids to do in town. Another outside activity would be good for us. There is more to do for the kids like me who play sports, but what about the kids who don't play sports. They need something to do, too. My favorite things about skateboarding are the challenge, I can do it all year and it's free!Sometimes I hear grown ups saying that kids at skate parks do drugs, drink and get hurt a lot. I don't think those grownups have ever been to a skate park. Hopefully, they will go and visit one of the skate parks in Auburn or Grass Valley and see for themselves. It's the only place, other than the youth center in town, where the teenagers and younger kids get along. It really makes you feel good when a teenager notices you and your skateboarding and says something nice! See you at the next skate park meeting, I hope, on Wednesday at The Riders Union (1534 S. Canyon Way) at 7 p.m. Dalton Bannister, 8, is a third-grader at Colfax Elementary School.