Roller Skating Memories

I just got home from Ogden where East Story County Girl Scouts were roller skating for Thinking Day.  I hadn't skated for two years.  My legs got tired very fast.  My shins ached.  My feet quickly got those little sore spots, insides of the arches, big toes, from how I push when I skate.  Those are the places where I always used to get blisters.  The roller rink there has a wood floor.  It's a bit tricky to get used to.  The skates are old-school with those super skinny laces that get all knotted up if you're not careful. 

I sat at a table with my friend quite a bit, watching the adults, teens, youngers and little tiny kids.  Zipping by, creeping past, weaving in and out, holding hands, stumbling, crying, stomping along, clutching each other, smiling, singing with the music, sitting down hard, collapsing onto knees, held up, helped up, guided.  Kind of like life.

When I was growing up, we used to go roller skating in Des Moines sometimes.  There was a rink on the west side.  What was the point of going skating?  Social interaction, exercise?  All I really wanted was a boyfriend.  The skating rink offered the possibility of meeting a boy I didn't go to school with.  God, that agonizingly frustrating couples skate.  Lights low, sort of blue with white rotating spots all over the floor, music appropriate for holding hands and skating slow.  I never found a boyfriend at the skating rink. 

In college we would sometimes go roller skating.  I really got blisters from those skate frenzies.  It was fast and feverish and sweaty, and I'm lucky that blisters were the only wounds I sustained.  I did meet a boy after skating once.  My friend's car broke down, and this guy stopped and drove us back to our dorm.  He called me later and asked me out.  His name was Wayne.  We went to a movie, and I've forgotten now what we saw, but I remember that he cried.

If I ever win the lottery I'm going to build a roller rink.  It'll have good food and snacks, a really awesome game room and great music.  I'll make my husband DJ or at least pick all the tracks.  Where else can kids go these days to hang out and have fun.  Meet someone they didn't go to kindergarten with.  Hold hands and skate to a slow song.