If you were a child of the 80’s you probably remember with me the glory days of the roller rink: skin-tight Sasson (or Jordache) jeans tucked into Riddell skates with a lucky rabbit’s foot hanging off of it, skating to the music of REO Speedwagon, Abba, or Boston (or – God forbid, DISCO!)…waiting desperately for the “couples” skate so you could hold hands with that cute boy/girl you had a crush on. Oy. So many memories.
Today, I revisited those memories. Much older and far too heavy to even think about painted-on jeans, I took my children to their first roller rink experience. Crisana brought her own skates (not Riddell’s, but rather Toys ‘R’ Us special editions), but Trey and I had to settle for the cheapo rentals with frayed shoelaces. We went to Thunderbird Roller Rink in Plano, which has a special “Mom and Tots” session on Thursday mornings. I went a couple times when Trey was a baby because they do “stroller skating” where moms can bring their strollers and skate while pushing the stroller around the rink. So this was a new experience for all of us.
Crisana took to skating pretty easily. By the end of our time there, she had the basics down and could almost do it on her own. Trey, on the other hand, definitely has his own style. After numerous falls, and nearly quitting, he finally gave it his best shot and made it a couple of laps around the rink on his own with very little help. It was lots of fun and now the kids are begging to go back! Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my camera so I don’t have any pictures to share, but it was definitely something we will do again.
The cool dudes had their own ‘disco’ skates from the JC Penny catalog, and master the turn backwards skate, so they could hold hands with the cute grrl during couples skate while skating backwards. And Hall & Oates rocked!
So I’ve heard.
(I used to do my paper route in skates too, much more efficient than a bike, did my whole route in 18 minutes once.)
I can’t do the new fangled blade skates…
No, see, the whole skating backwards thing was so the guy could drape his arms over the girl’s shoulders (or clasp his hands behind the girl’s neck) and look really cool like “this is MY girl, don’t even THINK about touching her or asking her to skate!”
Yeah, that never happened to me.
You must have been one cool roller-skating newspaper boy. 18 minutes…is that a world record or something?
And how could I forget Hall & Oates???