Do People Still Skate? For Real??

Back in the day, I went skating all the time. Friday Night with my best outfit on, which by the way was probably too fitted to skate in. I had a car, so I didn't have to get dropped off like some of my friends. That meant that I could go for a root beer float or an oreo blizzard afterwards. A few lucky friends would be able to ride home with me, but I wasn't trying to load my down with the entourage of people that were official back seat riders. Going to the rink was about the only time in my teenage years that I tried to be on time. Everyone wanted to get there as soon as possible in order to have the maximum amount of time to flirt, skate, eat, play video games, and dance when the DJ announced that skates needed to come off for the next hour or so. It was extremely exciting from start to finish. That is if you had at least 2 friends to hang with. Like everything else in high school, cliques were everywhere in the skating rink. Yes, it makes life difficult and wonderful to be a part of a clique, but that's just the way it always seems to be. You just can't get away from them.

Anyway, I was brought back into reality last Friday when my mom and younger cousin wanted to go skating. Last time they came to Tally (4th of July - 2009), I didn't look for the skating rink because...hmmm. because I just didn't. This time I wasn't going to be able to ignore the constant request to find a rink. So, Friday night we ventured to unchartered territory. I was dreading the toddlers and teenagers, but I was pretty sure it would be completely empty because people don't skate anymore. So I thought anyway. Unfortunately for me they were all there along with young adults and some oldies. It seems to me that nothing is age appropriate anymore. Everything is sort of one size fits all. There were quite a few people there. There were People renting the traditional pair of roller skates or the newer of version of rollerblades. They didn't have those to rent when I was high school. You had to bing your own and some rinks wouldn't allow you to bring in street skates. They supposedly scratched the floor. Some were sitting in the food court area eating and watching their friends or children go round and round. I decided to sit on the carpet covered seats that surrounded that actual rink. I wanted a front row seat. I was thrown that so many people were there.

I had the same feelings I did last friday that I had 10+ years ago. Watching the pros and the amateurs was great. I prefer watching the people who do tricks and move to the beat of the random songs that are played, but watching a great fall is equally entertaining as long as no one gets hurt. There was one guy that I could not keep my eyes off for the duration of the night. He was a smooth criminal for sure. It was as if he owned the floor and the ridiculous amount of chaos around him was not there. He flowed or better yet glided arund the floor rocking and swaying and spinning and lifting and doing what he did so beautifully that I had to tell myself to stop staring before he dicided I was creeper. It was great watching him though. I remember being able to command attention like that on the floor. I think men are slightly smoother than women because they don't have big bottoms and boobies to control, but I could dance and skate great enough to be asked to roll with groups and do special tricks with the best of them.

I had a great time and plan to test my abilities sometime soon. I wonder if it's just like riding a bike. Once you learn, you always know how. I don't want to have bruises at my age. Skating would not be a valid excuse if my face is all busted up. I recorded some skating throughout the night that I will upload as soon as i convert the file. The video was kind of dark because the lights were low, so I recorded on negative. Bare with it... There are a few falls, some average skating, kids going really fast, the smooth criminal skating slower than anyone else, etc.