Roller Derby!

A coworker of mine and I were briefly conversing about our weekend, and he mentioned he went to a roller-skating rink with his daughter (I think). Anyway, this spurred on a discussion ... actually, probably more like a walk down memory lane. Do you remember when roller rinks were all the rage? I do.

There was this rink near my house called "Skate Oddyssey," and I went there many times as a youngster ... usually for either birthday parties or school functions. No, I wasn't a very good roller skater, but it didn't matter. I remember vividly (for some reason) skating around the rink in a pair of rented roller skates (I think they were blue with red stripes), my blue corderouys (from the Gap), and a blue and red striped shirt (no, I wasn't retarded), skating to "We've Got the Beat" by the Go-Go's (ok, maybe I was a little retarded).

The funny thing about this roller rink was that it had a "beginners" area set aside from the actual rink ... this beginner's area actually had columns sprinkled throughout the middle of it ... kind of an odd place for columns ... I saw many a kid uncontrollably crash into these columns ... and I probably did so as well on a few occasions.

Also, this roller rink had a fantastic arcade that featured Pac Man, Donkey Kong, and Defender ... I was not good at any of these games sadly, so I stuck with Space Invaders. The cool older kids hogged up Defender and must've had 8-10 quarters on the top of the machine (these signifed "next game").

I also remember the "slow skates." The DJ (located in the center of the rink) would play slow songs, like "Faithfully," and "All Out of Love" and the couples would go out and skate around the rink holding hands ... I was always nervous/anxious about this for some reason ... would a girl ask me to slow skate (probably a long shot, considering that I didn't skate well, and the clothes I was wearing)? Should I ask a girl to skate? Should I stand on the side and tell fart jokes? The possibilities were endless ... ah, to be young again!