Skate Skate Revolution

Nostalgia can be painful if abused. It has a tendency to bring about feelings of euphoria, invincibility and recklessness. Limit your exposure to the volatile past and you should be safe, though. Doses of reality should return any overdose victims to the current time.

This past weekend, I was coerced into reliving one of someone else's past glories: the exciting world of roller skating.

Ah, the simple pleasure of strapping low-friction wheels to one's feet and trying to continue to maintain one's balance in a sea of children half your height and age as they zoom in circles and arcs around you as though you were a signpost on a street corner.

A small group of us went and, mercifully, the kids more or less treated us an non-entities.

Luna returned to her roots and was keeping up with the kids in about 6 minutes. She zoomed around the rink as though very little time had passed since she last skated. Forwards, backwards, fancy stops. She had little trouble with it all. Muscle memory is apparently strong when it comes to this sort of thing.

As Luna zoomed around gracefully, Lyons walked gingerly on his skates, trying to maintain his balance while not attempting to move all that much. He stumbled slowly around the edges near the carpet where he occasionally stepped off and stopped himself with a table and sat down to catch his breath from the exertion. After an hour or so, he began to coast a little longer and begin to look as though he was actually skating. He did, however, refrain from falling even though he looked ungraceful.

I was somewhere in between them. While backwards was out of the question, I picked up momentum enough to race with a few of the older kids once I was used to the skates. Stopping was little issue, as I either needed to step off onto the carpet and slowed quickly as I went towards the aisle or I fell unceremoniously on my backside when the floor transitioned from tiling to the old wooden floor which ran only up one side of the ring - much like a bowling lane - trying to avoid other skaters, who, at least, had less skill than I did.

Several hours of this and Lyons decided that he had had enough. Judging from his physical condition, we all agreed that maybe we should move along to other activities including beer and young ladies in short shorts.

None of us woke up sore the next morning, but my cell phone left a well-formed bruise on my pelvis where I martyred myself falling face first onto the floor avoiding a small child that had tripped over some Skittles® that were scattered around the rink.

Another excursion into the world of nostalgia is forthcoming. Armed with a bit more practice, as we have been skating 3-5 miles a day in the park nearby, we plan to go out again and prove ourselves.

We're going skating, wanna come?

Currently Playing: [ Kiss : War Machine ]