It cracks me up that everything old is new again. My daughter and her boyfriend have recently discovered roller skating. (As if roller skating was a new phenomenon.) After one of their date nights, she was telling me about the loud dance music the D.J. played, explained what a “couple’s skate” was, and described the disco lights swirling around the rink.
Little did she know that in the 80s, this was our typical Friday night!
Long before rollerblading was a thing, we had roller skating - four wheels! In my hometown of Augusta, ME, my friends and I spent multiple evenings at “Happy Wheels Skate Center.” It was a whole thing: staking out our table and putting our jackets there so no one else could claim it, eating crappy pizza from the snack bar, popcorn peppered along the dark carpet with neon swirls, the smell of sweat in the air.
I remember thinking how cool I was when showing off my newest skates (we ALL owned them.) I remember doing figure eights, skate-dancing to Xanadu, flirting with the boys from our school in hopes they’d pick me for “gentleman's choice.” The good old days!
I recently went roller skating with my daughter, her boyfriend, and my son. At first I was hesitant because, you know, I didn’t want to break a hip or anything. But hell - life's too short. I desperately wanted to relive that memory of wearing skates with 4-wheels and gliding around in a circle for hours on end. I’m so glad I went; so happy I didn’t let the voices in my head talk me out of it.
The night didn’t disappoint. Well, the music left something to be desired, but it was fun! My son and I were a little wobbly at first, he had never been on skates, and I hadn’t been on them for at least thirty years, but before long we were able to hold our own and kept up with the crowd of people circling the rink. I laughed to myself while watching some teen boys showing off at the rink - making dramatic turns, crouching down with one leg extended, threading themselves between other skaters at warp speed, racing each other. Some things haven’t changed; there were always those whose claim to fame was they excelled at dominating their local skate rink!
A few takeaways from my evening at “Roller Kingdom”:
Neon is back in. Maybe it never left.
Pizza at skating rink snack shops is always disgusting.
Four wheels trumps two wheels any day.
Roller skating is enjoyable at any age.
Dark carpeting with colored squiggly lines gives me a headache.
You can’t skate-dance to rap.
I am putting roller skates on my Mother’s Day gift list.
