Stockton, California * -- Skateboard Pro Tony Hawk * has a hard time understanding that a 6-year-old boy from this town would want, more than anything in the world, to meet him.

"It's a big honor," Hawk said Friday.

"But at first, I thought 'You don't want to waste your wish on me. You could go to ... the Grand Canyon or France * or something.' "

For Austin * Perkins, there's no one else he'd rather meet. No wish he'd rather have granted. "He's my favorite skater," Austin said Friday evening during a party at his Stockton home. This morning, Austin will get on an airplane to fly to San Diego *. On Monday, he will meet Hawk.

It's all a gift from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which grants the wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses.

Austin suffers from a rare cancer that affects the muscle tissue in the eye. He was diagnosed in August, after his parents took him to the hospital for some swelling in the tear duct of his left eye. "The first few days were the bottom of bottoms," said his dad, Greg Perkins. But Austin has remained mostly in high spirits through the treatment. He underwent 5 1/2 weeks of radiation and has another nine months of weekly chemotherapy treatments ahead of him.

When Make-A-Wish volunteers asked Austin about the one thing in the world he'd most like to do, he said, "Meet Tony Hawk." Well, he said, "Meet Tony Hawk and go to Disney World." But when pressed to name just one thing, he chose Hawk.

He has Hawk's skateboarding videos and all but one of his video games. He watches the ESPN * X Games on TV and talks about Hawk all the time, his parents say.

"When they built that skate park over on El Dorado -- he was just 4 and I had just barely gotten him his first skateboard -- he said, 'One day I'm going to skate here with Tony Hawk,' " Greg Perkins remembered.

"Dreams do come true," said Austin's mom, Mercedes Perkins.

Karen Vossmer, who with her friend Rhonda Speelman volunteers for Make-A-Wish helping to orchestrate granting wishes for children between Stockton and Modesto, said most children wish for a trip to Disney World.

"It's really unusual to find someone as young as Austin who idolizes someone like Tony Hawk," Vossmer said. Hawk has met a handful of children through the Make-A-Wish Foundation and was even lauded by the program in 2002 * for his dedication.

"It's a little strange for me. Skateboarding when I was young wasn't popular," Hawk said. "It wasn't considered a career by any means. To become the best skateboarder in the world meant you won a competition, and maybe someone put your picture in a magazine."

But skateboarding today is not just a hugely popular sport -- take X Games as one example -- it's also a giant industry of hard goods, shoes, clothing, video games and action figures. And Hawk is an icon.

Hawk said he'll show Austin around the Tony Hawk Inc. offices, where they produce videos and come up with skateboard and clothing designs.

"Then we'll do some skating for him," Hawk said.

The massive ramp maze that Hawk drags across the country for his Boom Boom Huck Jam tours is set up outside his office in northern San Diego County. Hawk will invite other pros in town over to the ramp and give Austin and his parents an intimate demonstration.

"I want them to feel like they did experience something special," Hawk said. And, he said, he won't concentrate on Austin's illness. "Kids are sick of hearing about their ailments," Hawk said. "I just want to meet them for who they are."

When he meets Austin, he's likely to meet a kid who is energetic and upbeat -- a boy who can be a bit ornery, but more often is thoughtful. And Austin's a kid who -- just like Hawk -- also has a love for baseball.

Austin hasn't been skateboarding very much since he was diagnosed with cancer. But he said he's "practicing."

When Hawk was 6 years old, he hadn't yet ridden a skateboard. He was still a baseball player and fan who would have wished -- if he had the chance to meet anyone in the world -- to hang out with any member of the San Diego Padres.

"If not the Padres, then Evel Knievel," Hawk said.

This article was originally entitled "Flight to see Hawk has boy's spirit high: Cancer victim, 6, to meet skating icon", and was found at http://www.recordnet.com/daily/news/articles/121104-gn-2.php

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