Wednesday, January 21, 2004
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Wednesday, January 21, 2004 |
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Feeling young again By MICHAEL BOYLAN I relived a large part of my youth this past weekend when my friends and I went roller skating. Growing up, I spent a good amount of time at the Roller Palace, which was what the skating rink a mile or so from my house was called. On the outside, it looked like every other skating rink I’d ever seen, by which I mean very unassuming. Without a sign of a large roller skate, the building looked like a seedy warehouse. The inside was an entirely different matter. Though it was very dimly lit - the better to accentuate the colored lights and neon - my eyes would soon adjust to the visions that surrounded the middle-school me. There were dozens of video games along the walls, a snack bar with all sorts of junk food treats, older, more coordinated skaters dazzling me with their graceful maneuvers and, most importantly, girls. There were girls everywhere. Some of the girls were out my age range and more were out of my league, but every time I went skating, my goal was to find a girl for the couple skates and, more often than not, I succeeded. The keys to finding a girl for the couple skates were like the board game Othello — easy to learn but hard to master. First, don’t rush. The skating session typically lasted from 1-5 p.m., though people started packing up around 4 p.m. It was important to use most of the first hour to skate around and mingle. Though I knew some of the skaters from school, there were kids from the other middle school in town and even some people from a few towns over. Not every city in our county had a skating rink, so there were more girls to choose from. This gave you a chance to operate out of your assigned middle school caste. If you were not one of the cool kids Monday through Friday, nobody else had to know that. The second rule was to not fall. This was sometimes difficult because it is a part of every young man to want to show off his skills. If you skate too fast or try a trick that is too risky, you may fall. If you fall, chances are lots of people saw it and, if the fall was bad enough, laughter may start. Some falls are minor and easily overlooked, but some are just laughable. The other risk of falling was hurting yourself to the point of tears, which was the worst type of fall imaginable. It is also important that the friends you arrive with don’t try to knock you down while skating. Later in life, these friends will be called your wingmen. Now, that you are skating around without falling, making eye contact and checking everybody out, you are ready for the first couple skate It is important to act, because the DJs do not play lots of couple skate songs. Whether they do this to avoid making people feel like outcasts if they are relegated to the sides, thereby alienating their customer base, or to keep the kids from getting too serious, chances are limited. By now, you should know who you are going to choose, now you must get up the nerve to ask. However, there is also a chance that you may be asked, so it is a tenuous situation and one that must be monitored closely. You may want to wait for the first few seconds of the song to start, but you don’t want to wait too long either. Eventually, you get a sense of how to do this. The rules are ingrained in your memory and, like The Force, you just know how to play these situations. I skated with lots of girls at the Roller Palace and each of them used to hold a special place in my memory. Many of them are gone now, with the exception of the first girl, Kyrie. I think it was so special, because it was my first couple skate. There was a large feeling of coolness, as we skated laps around the smooth floor, in even dimmer light, holding hands. Every time I went back to skate, I looked for her but I never saw her again. Eventually, I stopped skating. I got older and the crowds got younger. My friend and I started going night skiing and began to pick up ski bunnies. The memories of roller skating came back to me the other night, though, and I realized that I could still stay on my feet. I urge everyone to go back to the roller rinks. It’s good exercise and we can all use a chance to feel young again.
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