The greatest gods of Greek mythology are all equipped with valuable accessories. Zeus has his lighting bolts, Poseidon has his trident and Thomas Winter, a professor of classics and religious studies, has his skateboard.

Winter, who is 62-years-old, has been skateboarding for about 15 years. Originally, Winter wanted skates that could be easily mounted and dismounted. He took the base and wheels of a pair of old fashioned roller skates and fixed them to an 'L'-shaped tube. Winter could stand on the two bases and hold them onto his feet by pulling up on the tube. He eventually came to realize that he only needed to use one foot and that the tube was unnecessary.

So I just took a skate platform with the wheels under it and put some skateboard duct tape on it.

"I'd step on it very carefully, scoot a couple of times and roll," Winter said. "And thus was born the world's smallest skateboard."

Winter still has "the world's smallest skateboard," except the variation of it that he has today is made from a child's roller skate that allows for tighter turns.

The next logical step was to get an actual skateboard, Winter said. While he does prefer to get around under his own power, whether it is by bicycle, roller skates, inline skates or even ice skates, Winter understands that a car is necessary when he has a lot of errands to run downtown.

"Usually I'd throw a bicycle in the trunk and then bicycle from wherever I was able to find a parking place," Winter said.

Winter eventually realized that it would be a lot easier to replace the bicycle with a skateboard.

"I was having so much fun skateboarding from wherever the heck I parked to the campus and then from the campus to where I parked that I found myself doing two things: whishing that I'd parked farther away and making excuses to drive so I could have some skateboard fun," Winter said.

Winter has never had any trouble while skateboarding on campus except for heavy traffic. Students never give him any problems, and professors and other faculty have never expressed any objection to it either.

One professor was amazed that Winter would do this at his age. Winter looks at it a little differently.

"I think it's a good thing at my age to still be limber enough that I can balance on a skateboard of any size," Winter said.

Winter has received a very positive reaction from students. One student told Winter that his skateboarding is a good way to distinguish older students from newer students: Winter will skate by older students with no reaction at all, while newer students will stare at him in amazement with their jaws open.

"When I first saw him I thought it was a little out of control," said Andrew Hover, a sophomore German major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a student in Winter's Classics 180 course. "I'm used to it now, and it's just another ordinary thing on campus."

One thing that is extremely important to Winter is staying fit and active for his entire life. After the death of his brother, who was 340 pounds at the time of his death when he suffered from his third heart attack, Winter realized it was a message he needed to get across to his students.

"There was a student who told me that seeing me roll by made him think about staying fit himself," Winter said. " 'Look at him at his age' was the sort of thought. From time to time, I permit myself to think of myself as - watch out, here comes a pun - a role model."