When Winter, my brother Chris, and the other skaters in our group started their efforts to get a skate park installed in our town, they were not considered heroes. With rare exception, the sound of their wheels clacking across pavement was only welcome to our parents, because they knew we were leaving or coming home. The skate park was built as much for the businesses sick of kids grinding on their means of egress and leaving behind graffiti, as much as it was for the kids.

Jason Page’s contributions to the rest of the group’s efforts to build the park were manifold, because at the end of the day he didn’t care as much about skating as he did about spending quality time with his friends. He could barely do an olly but he still rode his board knowing anyone calling him a poser was a defacto loser. And he was always happy to pick up a camera and film a better skater, no shade attached.

Before our art became a spectacle, Jason and Winter worked with me at the community television station, where we shot “Page Zero”, a skate video featuring our skater friends. Page for Jason, who was there from day one, and Zero for Winter, whose humility only matched his cleverness. The tragedy of our friends’ deaths was never far from Jason’s mind, and he carried that loss as his cross to bear.

Those who would say Jason doesn’t deserve to be memorialized beside his friends, who he would have gladly admitted were better skaters, weren’t there at the beginning. Maybe they skipped page zero in favor of headier lore, but the origins of the park can be traced to Page Zero and later MCTV productions he was attached to.