I want to roller skate.

I am not sure how old we were when mom signed us up for skate lessons.  The roller rink (Does anyone still call them roller rinks?) was in Ames, a town about 8 miles west of Nevada.  We skated every weekend for a while. Mom skated too, sometimes but I do not remember my dad ever coming with us.

Remember how young my mom was!  When I was 12, she was only 30.   I remember one time she was skating with my brother Michael Dennis when somehow she fell on her knees.  She tore her nylons and got a terrible bruise! Mike was a pretty good skater, very coordinated and strong.  Why, you may ask, did we call him Michael Dennis?  I have 2 younger brothers, Michael Jon and Stephen Robert, my blood brothers.  Michael Dennis was 16 when he came to live with us so we had to find a way to differentiate the two of them.  My parents adopted him.

I was a good enough skater that I could skate backwards, do turns, shoot the duck, take the turns like a pro step over step.  I never owned a pair of skates. Once I was old enough to drive, we went to the roller rink in Marshalltown a couple of times, too.  We did the limbo, shoot the duck, backward skates, couples, and my favorite- the hokey pokey.  That's what it's all about.

I am thinking about this because I went to a roller rink today to watch Kari and Alaysia skate.  My son and his wife and her mom were there, too.  Karen and I did not skate.  I wish I could.  How I used to love it!  Oh, I wish I could skate again.

My kids and I used to go skating when we visited mom and dad in Ames.  That was probably the last  few times I went skating.  In 1993 I bought some roller blades. I quickly learned that roller blades and roller skates are not alike at all.  I never got the hang of the roller blades.  I did not like skating on sidewalks and uneven ground.  My only previous experience was on nice smooth, flat cement since I never had a pair of outside skates, you know the ones that fit on over your shoes and require a skate key.  I also discovered that I was afraid of falling!  When did that happen? I was afraid to skate up or down hill.  I was unsure of being able to stop.  Very sad.

At the rink today they had these contraptions made of PCV pipe and duck tape that looked like walkers.   Kids who couldn't skate well used them.  They seemed dangerous to me.  When I was a kid, the kids who were learning just hugged the walls. They did the limbo today but the did not play the limbo song!  It felt the same and yet not the same.  There were very few "good" skaters.  The kids with the skate walkers really got in the way.

When we think back on the past often we think of those times as better and get nostalgic about the good ole days.  I think the best part of the good ole days is how young and strong and fearless I was.