I used to borrow my brother's one growing up near Paris in the 80s-90s but that was before kids were holding their skateboards in their hand like a fashion accessory. Girls have their handbag and boys now have their handskateboard. I have observed numerous of these strange specimens in the subway's corridors or in the street. They keep holding it in their hand, never riding it. Actually not only kids, even some men.I used to have one growing up in LA in the Fifties but that was before kids were leaping on top of trucks with them and up and down bannisters and down stairways.
Neither did I. I began skateboarding because I was tired of my roller skates. I stopped the day I fell and had an ugly graze on my knee. But the fascination for that "sport" still remains. There is a bar in Paris with a big screen for the football or rugby matches. One evening, there were no matches and they broadcasted a skateboard championship instead; that was enough to captivate me.Yes, skateboarding is still a crime. I used to skate a little when I was 16-18, but didn't develop the technical abillities to do it really good, so the fascination for it faded away.