My oldest son Kurt posing for a photo with Tony Hawk (image by Tori green)

A few years back, I had ridden the dirt bike over to pick up the boys from a sleep over. On the way home we were passing the local mechanic when a mate named Carlo yelled out to me. I pulled over and he started telling me and the boys that he had Tony Hawk up on the half pipe on the roof of his bar.

At first, I thought he was just pulling my leg but thought bugger it, it's on the way home, and if he's not there I could always grab a beer.

Much to our surprise there was already a crowd of photographers and spectators starting to gather on the roof top

My youngest son didn't want to get in the photo, he had played Tony Hawk the skateboarding game, and initially was all excited to go to Xbar and check it out. But when we got there a and saw there was no gaming console, just a dude on a skateboard he seemed less than impressed. It took him a while to piece it all together.

I managed to get him to sign two of our stubble coolers. 

While he was skating, I quickly ran over the road opened our bar and grabbed a few coolers for him to sign, a couple of years later I gave one to a friend from Egypt. Unfortunately the other ended up being stolen from our bar several years later. So this photo is all we have left.

Turns out he was here to see a child that his family had helped support for years, and to help launch a new skating project run by another Australian down in Phnom Penh. He had just heard of the roof top half pipe and his team knew it would make for some nice photos

(Image from Xbar website https://www.sociview.com/tag/xbarsiemreap/)

Tony Hawk has just recently turned 50 too, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TONY!