random thoughts – Day 1,161 – (Monday) – skates

Thirteen years ago today, I got my quad skates for roller derby. Our team was early in the days of forming, and we were doing military-style physical training workouts in the parking lot of the Greenway in Clarksville, Tennessee. Pushups on hot asphalt. Running in circles. Burpees. Crunches. In full blown 6:00 pm hella-hot Tennessee sun. 

Once we had a rink to skate at, the skate shop we all used was Asphalt Beach in Nashville. They had a mini track painted on the floor in there to test things out. After Steve, the skate guru, fitted me for my skates and laced them up, I stood up from the bench, and immediately fell on my arse. Hard. Yup, all good, no test track for me, let’s just bag these up along with some knee pads and I’ll be on my merry way.

Unlike the majority of my teammates, roller skating was not one of my growing up activities. It was ballet and downhill skiing for me. I remember my family  going once to the Whalom Roller Rink when my brother was in Cub Scouts and they had an event. When I was in college, a friend and I went a few times to Roll On America when her firefighter boyfriend and his friends were going there for roller disco.  

In those college days, I bought some candy apple red patent leather skates from a discount store near Worcester and an outfit planned around them – white pants with a red piping stripe down the outer leg and a red short-sleeve blouse with little white birds all over it. Not long into the skate session with the new skates and coordinated outfit, the front wheels fell off my skates. The guy behind me scooped them up from the floor as if it was a daily activity for him. I didn't know at the time about skate wheels and trucks and adjustments, and returned what I thought were defective skates to the store. The wheel scooper upper did not become a rom-com boyfriend like in a Hallmark movie. I didn’t skate again for decades. 

New skates at home on a
hardwood floor, May 22, 2010.

The day I bought my skates in Nashville, it was a hot Tennessee Saturday afternoon. The toe caps and wheels chosen were blue, because we were going to use aqua and gold as team colors (later changed to red, black and silver). After ringing up my purchase, the skate sales guy walked me the block to where my car was parked, carrying the box with my skates for me and we had a nice chat. 

At home, I put on my skates and skated in a loop on the hardwood floors of my ranch home. It was through the living room, left down the hall, into the dining room, left into the kitchen, and a left back into the living room. It was neither smooth nor graceful.

Once our team had a home rink (Magic Wheels), I properly learned to skate, and perhaps the most valuable skill, how to fall six safe and different ways. Dang I miss it. All of it. The bruises, the rink rash, the physical and mental challenge, the competition, the skills test, being in top physical shape, the derby sisterhood. All of it. Even the dreaded burpees.