Growing up as a child of the 80's I spent equal time in church AND at the skating rink.
Roller skating was my refuge in a sea of battling parents and chaotic home life.
I can still remember my first time. I stepped out onto that scuffed floor in those perky white skates with the hot pink wheels and matching pom poms. My ankles wobbled as those wheels started spinning and I did a couple of wave moves from arm to arm as I tried to stay upright.
Very quickly I mastered this. I was a different person when I was skating. I could move through the masses with ease. I was the Jimmie Johnson of the local roller skating world.
Many years later I was invited to a friends birthday party, she thought it would be great to go old school and have a skating party. Very nostalgic. We convinced ourselves that skating must be something like riding a bike, once you learned how to do it you never forgot.
Let me clarify. WE HAD NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL WE WERE THINKING? In theory I remembered how to skate. In actuality, not so much. But we were game. We laced up those skates and got up with every intention of getting our butts out on the floor and showing our moves.
Well we showed some moves all right. Unfortunately, the only one I mastered that day was falling. But as I had done many years before I kept getting up and trying again. Eventually I was able to stand up without my feet shooting out from underneath me.
After five hours of trying and failing, trying and failing, trying and finally declaring a truce with the skate devil we packed it in.
Lesson Learned: Roller skating is nothing like riding a bike.
Omg I'm the most anti-grace person ever. Roller skating was not my thing, but I did go to school skate parties and secretly crushed on boys from the dark corner (where I sat. Alone.) :/
ReplyDeleteThat is the TRUTH! For me, it was ice-skating. After many years of not skating, we all decided that we were going to go to NYC during Christmasand skate at Rockefeller Center. Of course, being the practical people we are, we headed out to the Skatium for a few "practice sessions" first. Suffice it to say, after round one we were all covered in bruises and when we went to NYC, no one went skating :)
ReplyDeleteOMG, Roller Skating! I haven't done that since 1981. Wow... Mine had lime green wheels. I never did master any real tricks. I was satisfied to go forward and back. Now, turning. That would have been cool. I watched people do cross-overs into the turns and just choked.
ReplyDeleteAt my age, roller skates are merely memories in photo albums. I can't even ride a bike anymore (certain parts of my anatomy keep falling asleep and IT'S NOT PLEASANT).
At 15, I swore I'd never get old. At 44, I can't believe I am this old. *sigh* Thanks for the blast from the past.
I was an Air Force brat, and we used to spend a LOT of time at the skating rink on base. Must admit, "brat" is an apt descriptor--my friends and I (a whole pack of 8-10-year-olds) used think it great fun to fake-fall in front of the basics, and then watch them practically kill themselves trying to avoid colliding with us.
ReplyDeleteIf they hadn't been afraid of our fathers, who outranked them considerably, they might not have tried so hard not to hurt us. ;)