Roller Skating rinks. Man, they were fun, weren't they? I'm talking about the ones in which you used your roller skates with the four wheels - not the in line skates. We had a roller skating rink right up the street from our grade school - I believe it was called "Skate Odyssey."
Many of my classmates had birthday parties at Skate Odyssey. I remember playing arcade games like Defender and Frogger whilst trying to stay balanced on my roller skates. I also remember skating around the "bowl" in my blue corduroy pants, listening to "We Got the Beat" by the GoGo's (I can't remember why it's this song that I remember most when I think of Skate Odyssey).
I was never great at roller skating, but I could hold my own. Sure, I fell a few times, but never anything serious or dramatic. But, one thing I do remember vividly is hearing the ambulance fly past our school on Mac Dade Blvd on it's way to the roller skating rink. It happened daily, and sometimes 3-4 times a day.
I guess that's really one of the reasons the place close - insurance prices were probably outrageous. Plus, the inline skating probably took away some of the "cool-ness" of the skating rink.
But man, at one time, THIS ... WAS ... THE ... PLACE! It was exciting to "slow-skate" with a girl, or play roller-tag around the entire facility.
7 comments:
Ice skating is even more fun if you have no sense of nalance or direction. Tried it once. After wobbling straight across from one side to the other and causing several collisions - that I avoided myself - I was ejected as a human safety hazard.... Great fun!!
Oi!!! Change me linky thingy...pretty please
never been to one, just not in any of the hoods i grew up in
Nope. I prefer to fall down from alcohol consumption, not from having wheels under my feet : )
Nope. Bad deal with vertigo makes walking a challenge... strapping little wheels makes it 10x worse.
Skate Odyssey was awesome. The seats in the center of the rink were made out of orange shag carpet. Now it's a Pep Boys, Booo.
I took ice-skating lessons and owned rollerskates. Yet, I could only lap counterclockwise and the only way I could go backwards was to push off the wall and coast until I stopped. In other words, I sucked at it. But You brought me back there!
Our skating rink was called Skatehaven. I still have my trophy from the Skate-a-Thon .. it has a big gold skate on it and says "24-hours -- I did it!" And I still have my skates ... white with clear red wheels.
Now Skatehaven is "The Antique Mall." Dumb.
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