Nate marched in after school resolutely. He marched straight to the toy box and shoved aside trucks and balls until he triumphantly held up his roller skates, He sat down, strapped them onto his shoes and went out to the cement driveway. For the next week, he strapped on the skates and skated every day.
“Why are you skating so much?” I asked.
“My class has a skating party. I wanna know how to skate before I go,” he said. With practice he did just that.
I was reminded of his determination after my daughter Sharon attended a skating party for all ages. She observed, “Roller skating is like riding a bike. Once you learn as a kid, you never forget. You could tell the older kids and adults who had never learned to skate as a child.”
That’s true for any kind of skating. As a farm kid we only had gravel and dirt roads, so we did not roller skate. We did, however, live where the temperature stays way below freezing for weeks on end, freezing a thick layer of ice on farm ponds and creek beds. If it snowed, we swept or shoveled off the ice so we could skate. After learning to balance on blades, we had no problem using roller skates with four wheels.
And, bonus! entering a skating rink in a warm gym felt luxurious. I say gym because high school classes held fundraisers by hiring a traveling roller skating rink for a night of skating. The sponsoring class sold tickets ahead of time ensuring enough attendees to make a profit for the night. They used the money for their senior trip to Washington D.C.
The company arrived with a big truck the day of the skate with a temporary floor to lay over the hardwood gym floor. They set up for business with racks of roller skates in all sizes. We picked up our skates before we entered the gym.
I did not have to cling to the wall or a partner. I just skated around and enjoyed the DJ’s skating games.
One year, our local Youth For Christ teen center held a skating party. After a few rounds in my borrowed skates, I spotted a newer member at YFC – a blind girl sitting on the sidelines. I skated over to her. “Do you want to skate with me? I can help you,” I offered.
She nodded. I walked her to the skate races. She gave the clerk her shoe size, tied on the skates, held my arm tightly and cautiously stood up. Her voice shook, “I might fall.”
“You are all right. You can do it. I have you, “ I assured her.
Her hands trembled. She barely moved her foot forward an inch or two.
“You can do it. We’ll take it slow around the outside,” I eased us onto the floor.
First time skating is challenging enough. To do it without being able to see was another thing for both of us. As we slowly moved around the gym, she relaxed a bit and even smiled.
The other kids whizzed wide around us. “It’s okay,” I assured both of us. After all, it was her first time on skates and my first time to skate with a blind person. She made it around several times without falling down as she learned to balance.
She may not have known about roller skating as a kid, let alone had the motivation to try it. However, like the adults and older teens at my daughter’s event, the opportunity to go to a party with other teens, even a skating party, proved incentive enough to try, just as it had for my son who had fun and, as far as I know, did not fall down once.