My Old Skates Had Me Rolling Down Memory Lane

Cleaning: annoying

Finding my old skates while cleaning the basement: awesome

These poor skates have lost their luster. Dusty, rumpled, old. I know the feeling. I hold them up and dare myself to smell them. Not the insides, I’m not that brave, but the formerly white in color, battered with time, leather exterior. Smell is the sense that most transports me in time. If I smell Aussie hairspray I am in college again, trying to get the last bits of it out of the pump. The smell of popcorn- I’m working at the movie theater, cleaning up after the public, watching the end credits of the movie of the day.

A sniff of these boots on wheels put me right back in the rink in the ‘80s. Me, holding on to the side, daring to let go when egged on by my friend Shauna. Frequently she showed off and did a half turn, skating backwards as she reached out for my hands. My scrawny chicken legs struggled to move forward in the skates. There’s a reason I admired Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball and Laverne Defazio. I was them in teenage form rolling back and forth in place, trying to gain momentum that wasn’t of the backward variety.

A roller skating Dorothy Hamill I was not (I couldn’t even get her hairstyle right in the ‘70s). I got to know Kevin at the pizza window pretty well. “Slice of cheese” he’d say, not as a question, but as a statement as he threw the greasy pizza on a paper plate. I’d sit on a bench, eat the cheesy goodness, enjoying a don’t tell my mom I’m having a sugary drink soda, watching friends wooshing by sometimes with a wave. They skated with an ease I never, ever mastered. But I didn’t mind. I didn’t care that I wasn’t out there shooting the duck and whirling by everyone. I dug the atmosphere. The ‘80s music, of course, was great. Everyone was happy. Not sure if it was the town, the time or the place but there weren’t any fights, shouts, disagreements. It was all pleasant. I have lovely memories of that era, and that includes the humiliation of trying to roll into the bathroom. I think I rolled into the guys bathroom accidentally more than once.

You weren’t teased for not knowing how to skate. It made for a funny story. A carefree time before self confidence took a hit when you couldn’t do something perfect. Back then it was a shoulder shrug. An “oh well” I can’t skate. See you next Saturday.

Skating rinks of the ‘80s were an ego and judgement free zone. I took that carefree time for granted.

Skating is kinda making a comeback, but the state of things these days make the skating revival a bit tenuous. I anxiously await for the return. Not that I’ll be there on a Saturday like I was in the past. It will never be like it was. That moment of time with pure skating happiness won’t be replicated. That’s part of the acceptance of getting older. And what memories are for.

But when my friends’ kids have a skating party some time in the future I am so there.