The Skating Rink

36, Day 79 (Written Wednesday February 29) ~ Yesterdays post got me to thinking about those innocent days of my childhood that seem so long ago. A time that was simpler (at least it seems so by comparison to now), when the world seemed a little bit smaller and slower. We were too young to drive and there was nowhere to go on Friday nights except.....the skating rink.
If you grew up in the 70’s and 80’s you remember that the skating rink was THE place to be on Friday night. What better way to relax after a long hard week of middle school and little league practice than letting your troubles just roll away beneath your skates? Not roller blades or Heely’s mind you, but actual, 10 pounds a piece, leather and metal roller skates.
From 6 to 10 I wasn’t a kid, I was old enough to be out on the town on my own, after my parents dropped me off of course. The skating rink was like a night club for kids. Everybody was there, the music was blasting, flashing lights, your best outfit (maybe a Coca Cola neon yellow and blue sweatshirt or parachute pants with a bandana around your neck and your hair feathered back), disco balls, sirens, pool tables, video games (oh how I miss you Joust, Dig-Dug, Donky Kong, Frogger and Pac Man, why did we ever trade you in for Call Of Duty?), food and drinks and a DJ urging everybody to hit the floor cause it was time for some truckin’. Why didn’t we appreciate it more?
Of course there was the awkward and exciting moment when the DJ anounced, “Couples skate only.” You’d wipe your hands a dozen times trying to keep them from sweating while rolling up to some pretty little 80’s roller queen and asking her to skate. If she stuck out her hand for you to take it, your heart would jump into your throat and your stomach would fall into your skates. For the next three and a half minutes you were floating, not skating, scared to look over and make eye contact because you might trip you both, which would certainly ruin your chances of asking her to be your girlfriend. I don’t remember there ever being a bigger hit than Poison’s “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn.” The DJ would play it a dozen times throughout the night, but you didn’t mind because it was always during couples skate which gave you another chance to hold a girls hand. As soon as the song was over though, you high tailed it off the floor and back to the safety of your buddies huddled around Donky Kong, lest you get teased for liking the girl, which of course you hopelessly did.
There was always that one older kid there who brought his own roller skates with him (you know, the ones with the cool glow in the dark wheels) and could do all the cool skating tricks. He could make his skates criss cross back and forth effortlessly, squat down on one foot while sticking the other straight out in front of him and even spin around and skate backwards. I never could figure out how to do that, but I fell a million times trying.
Pulaski had a good skating rink back in the day, Columbia, even better, but the best I ever saw was the Skate Castle in Decatur. My cousins moved there and I went to visit once and didn’t want to come home. First of all the place looked like a giant castle, there was a line of people around the building waiting to get in, and a guy at the door checking people as they entered like some exclusive New York City club and then inside they had the latest video games, pool tables, air hockey, ping pong (who thought ping pong on roller skates was a good idea?) and they played all kinds of skating games. But not long after I traded in my roller skates for a skate board and then a car, saying goodbye forever to the skating rink social scene (at least until I had kids who were taken there for every birthday party).
Sadly there are very few skating rinks around any more and the ones that do exist are usually some Pentecostal Ministry/open only for birthday parties buildings. This world has just gotten too big, too wired, too connected, to distracting for skating rinks to succeed anymore, but I will say this, last year I took a group of 8th grade and under kids skating, most of whom had NEVER BEEN BEFORE (can you believe that?!?!). And guess what? They fell a thousand times as they awkwardly tried to figure out how to balance and move (most of them stiff legged as a billy goat) at the same time, but then something magical happened. They figured it out AND THEY LOVED IT! No phones, iPads or internet, just a group of kids laughing and squealing and talking and trucking and having a great time. Share your memories of the skating rink.