It’s the excited whisper of what has to be one of the luckiest little skateboard aficionados in all of Paris, a little boy who cruised through the small Skate Park Léon Cladel on a penny board and zoomed right past U.S. skateboarder Nyjah Huston, who was sitting next to some friends.
“Nice, but you need a real board,” Huston laughs, and the kid, in shock, quickly disappears.
Soon, Olympic bronze medalist Jagger Eaton and the legendary Chris Joslin pull up on their boards to the skate park tucked in between the Rue Montmarte and Rue Rèaumur.
Over the next hour, the air filled with the sounds of Parisian street life mixing with the grinding of trucks on rails, the momentary silence of catching air, the violent crack of wheels snapping back down onto concrete.
Two locals joined in, taking turns between Olympians. All of them brilliantly flaunting a reckless disregard for what us non-skaters think of as physics, gravity and basic self-preservation.
At one point I ask Huston, “What was that?” “Crooked grind,” he responds with a grin.
The three distinct styles — Huston’s flair, Jagger’s blithe and Joslin’s determination — mixed and merged and separated in a chaotic dance.
I spot the kid with the penny board from earlier, this time out of breath and clutching a brand new deck fresh from a local skate shop.
“A real board!” Huston says, and signs it along with Jagger and Joslin.
“Good luck!” the boy’s dad said.
For those in the right place at the right time in this magical city, there are some things far more valuable than an Olympic ticket.