The other day I got to ask a dozen seniors questions about their lives. I learned one woman had been a true “Rosie the Riveter” in her earlier days. Another man held a summer job at a dude ranch that ended up closing down and came back home having traded his paycheck for some pregnant mares, hoping to start a horse ranch. His dad was not happy with that decision.
But the question that I enjoyed most was asking them what they loved to do as teenagers. It turns out roller skating topped the list. One woman shared she won a race against a boy and was good at jumping over barrels in her skates. Another woman, who is 95 and has lived in the Prescott area since the 1940s, informed me there used to be a portable roller rink and she and her friends would go skating at the Granite Dells.
I quickly searched the Internet to see if I could find any photos of this online, but no luck. I can only imagine how much fun it would have been to strap on your skates and glide across a wooden floor, surrounded by majestic rocks, holding hands with a boy or girl you liked, while someone played records over a loudspeaker.
While there may be forty years between me and the resident who loved skating in the Granite Dells, roller skating was part of my younger days too. I remember trying to squeeze my shoes into the metal bindings of old strap-on roller skates to clatter down paved driveways and roads in our neighborhood. In the mid-1970s, when skateboarding became the next big thing, one of my friends took the metal wheels off her roller skates and had her dad screw them into a plank of wood. We took turns trying to balance on the board as it wobbled down the driveway, pitching us off as soon as it caught a big chunk of gravel between the wheels or we steered into the grass. We had knee and elbow scabs throughout the summer, but it was worth it to try to master the art of skateboarding.
A few years later, someone opened an indoor roller rink in my tiny hometown. Our pre-teen social life was transformed. Every birthday party was at the rink. We spent Saturdays at the all-day skate. I managed to win a pair of roller skates with purple wheels at the grand opening and instantly climbed a notch in sixth-grade social status until my feet outgrew them the next year and I gave them to my sister and was back to wearing rentals.
Sometimes I would be brave enough to flip around and skate backward for a little while. Inevitably, someone would trip and fall and the rink would turn into a slow-motion pileup, as skaters tried to swerve around the downed skater, some ending up on the floor next to them.
What I remember most was the feeling of flying around the rink, a warm breeze in my face as I built up speed with each lap, the speakers blasting the music I listened to on the radio each Sunday during “Casey Kasem’s Top 40 Countdown.”
A few years ago, I tried skating again, taking my nieces and nephew to an indoor rink in Minnesota. My feet still knew how to skate, but my mind kept warning me that if I fell, I might break a hip or an elbow at this age. I managed to block those worries, and for a little while, I was thirteen again. The music was different, but the feeling was the same.
For a brief moment this week, I imagined clearing out the furniture and transforming the dining area of our assisted living into a roller rink for the residents, so they could skate one more time, with lots of safety gear and walkers for stability. I know this wouldn’t fly for so many reasons, but it’s a fun thought, isn’t it? I guess some things are better left as happy memories.