Douglas Charlton Farr had always looked at skateboarders with quiet envy. But time slipped through his fingers – he found himself 30 years old, contemplating taking up the sport again.

"I'm too old at this point," he told himself.

But 28 years later, at age 58, he saw a skateboard at Costco and his long-lost fantasies hit him in a rush of nostalgia. "If I don't do it now, it'll be too late," he thought. From there, he never looked back.

As a past gymnast who competed provincially, he picked up skating quickly thanks to his natural agility, balance and bravery. Though, of course, learning wasn't without its challenges.

Now at 70, Farr has been skateboarding for 12 years and still loves it. 

"It's a feeling of freedom," he said. "When you watch a bird, they're scooping along and flying. That's basically what you're doing, but you're on the pavement."

Turns out, Farr is not the only grey-haired skateboarder in Victoria, B.C. When Living 60+ put out a social media call for skateboarders in their older years, it wasn't hard to find them.

Farr came to skateboarding late. But for others, the passion never faded.

I meet up at Topaz Park with regulars and friends Ricky Jak, 59, and Terry Orr, 62. Their boards are covered in stickers, their elbows and knees heavily padded. Both have been skateboarding since the late '70s.

"Most of us older skateboarders are punks," Jak said. "For years, it was illegal to ride skateboards on Victoria streets. They would confiscate your board and fine you. We rode the streets anyway."

Orr's claim to fame is that he once graced the cover of Thrasher, a popular skateboarding magazine, and opened up Spine Grind Skateboards on Discovery Street, the first skateboard shop in Victoria.

Jak started skating in '79 and has seen the scene change drastically.

He first started in Saanich Skatewave, part of Cedar Hill Park, but injuries and late-night partying prompted Saanich to shut it down and bury it after several years. No skate parks were built until 20 years later.

"[The community] was big. Then it died... but some of us couldn't get it out of our blood," he said. 

Back in Jak's day, the scene was all "underground," and skaters relied on DIY ramps in friends' backyards.

"We've seen it go from a total criminal activity to being quite popular now," Orr said.

Now, there are several new multi-million-dollar parks in the city.

While skateboarding may have once been a counterculture movement, the sport has become far more accepted. Even as the culture has shifted, the new generation embraces older skateboarders, they all told me.

When Farr started in his 50s, he began tentatively in his driveway, learning quickly what it felt like to slam into concrete. He ventured into skateparks during school days when no one was around. When kids saw him at the park, they asked him questions, thinking he must be a pro.  They were in for a surprise, he said. But so was he.

"I was completely unprepared for how cool the skateboarding community is," he said, adding he gets a variety of responses, "almost overwhelmingly positive."

He's still unsure what his family and friends think, but he assumes they chalk it up to him "going through a phase."

Jak said he feels embraced by the next generation. "We skate with all the kids," he said. "They stoke us, we stoke them."

For him, it's a community where he's always found his people. 

"Many of my friends are skateboarders. If I need something done in my regular life, there's usually a skateboarder who can help me out ... It's kinda like being a Freemason... we take care of each other."

Orr added that the sport is like a guaranteed friend-finder.

"I've made friends up and down this coast, all the way to California, via skateboarding," he said.

At Topaz Skatepark, Jak and Orr take on the bowl multiple times, dropping in and then slowly building momentum by going back and forth, up and down, until they can skim the top. A few times, Jak takes a huge wipeout from the top and slides down on his knee pads with a thud. He lets out a loud groan.

"It's getting harder these days because, of course, pain is a major factor. Probably one of the most painful sports ever created," he tells me.

"You don't see too many 60-year-olds hurling themselves off a 10-foot wall into the concrete, and that's what happens if you don't land the trick."

As much as it hurts, Jak has a favourite phrase that comes to mind.

"You didn't quit skateboarding because you got old. You got old because you quit skateboarding."

I ask them what they can do to manage the pain and how they take precautions at this age.

"Ibuprofen. And there's always the pub afterwards," Orr said.

"My bag of tricks over the years has gotten smaller and smaller. So, tricks equal pain because you're going to wipe out on a trick."

But despite the groans of pain, Jak is quick to get back on his board, and each time he makes it look effortless as he glides over the curves. It's easy to imagine how incredible it must feel to be able to do that, and to understand why they hold onto it after all of these years.

"For me and Terry, it's our life. It's a religion," Jak said.