San Diego County skateboarders, old and young, honor 50 years since the first skate park

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He may be 61-years-old, but Barry Blumenthal still had the glint in his eye and the mischievous smile of a teenager as he dipped, flipped and turned along the concrete bowl of the Encinitas Skate Park.

“You’re like an old bank robber, right,” Blumenthal said with a laugh, his shoulder-length spilling out below his helmet. “You can say you’re gonna quit, but eventually you’re gonna rob a bank. So people will say, ‘Oh, I quit skateboarding.’ And then the next time you see them, they’re back.”

Blumenthal was one of dozens who gathered on a sun-kissed Saturday to figuratively tip their boards to commemorate the 50th anniversary of March 3, 1976. That’s when Jack Graham and John O’Malley opened California’s first public skatepark in nearby Carlsbad.

They didn’t know it at the time, but the park helped turbo-charge the sport and skateboarding culture.