While trying to think of an idea for Throwback Thursday, skating came almost immediately to mind. When I was a kid I loved to skate, roller or ice, didn’t matter. Skating was just fun. Now I know skating is still around but skating as a kid was so much better. No fear just you and the skates gliding along.
I took ice skating lessons when I was seven or eight years old. I learned to skate backwards, spin and do an arabesque. I thought for sure I was going to be an Olympic figure skater. Of course that was never going to happen. I’m about one hundred miles from athletic or graceful but my mother was nice enough never to point this out. The dream died when we moved across town because my mother didn’t drive and there was no direct bus to take us there. Either way it didn’t matter I still loved the freedom and speed of skating whether it was on my street in roller skates or the times I got to the ice rink.
When I was eleven or twelve, disco and roller skating were all the rage. Movies about these two things together were hitting the theaters. Dancing on skates? I was in. My cousin, who was much older than me, came from New York for a visit. She took me on a shopping trip and bought me very expensive, brand new roller skates. I was in heaven. I skated every day for that whole summer and I have the scars to prove it. I came home scraped and bruised but I didn’t care.
My husband never understood why I loved to skate. The only time he’s ever been knocked out cold had been at an ice rink when he fell on the ice while holding hands with a date. Roller skating wasn’t for him either. When he fell at a child’s birthday party at a roller rink he assured me it was because a ten year old girl had hip checked him into the wall. Uh huh.
When inline skates came out, I asked my husband for a pair for Christmas. He was impressed with how well I skated and honestly so was I but it just wasn’t the same as a grown up. I do miss those summer days, skating up and down my street without a worry in the world. Or going to the ice rink and whizzing past all my friends while they desperately clung to the wall while trying to make it around once. Skating now definitely isn’t the same but I still think about those beautiful skates and how much I loved them.
I think it’s time to rent Roller Boogie!
P.S. Don't forget to enter the Rafflecopter on the right for a chance to win an Audio book copy of Breathe!
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