LIGHTENING UP A BIT - During the past few days, postings of some heavy subjects caused me to sort through essays that my friend Bob Tinsky wrote which have been on file for future use. Now that the election is over, and the two somber essays have been published, let's go back to yesteryear and read about how my friend, who is now 82, looks back to when he was 8 or 9 with his first roller skates. Since Bob has awakened some of my memory cells, I have decided to add my "Chapter Two" to an essay Bob sent a few months ago. THE WORDWRIGHT

Two old-timers tell about their roller skating days
by Robert J. Tinsky and Bill Venrick

Chapter One - by Bob Tinsky

I must have been about 8 or 9 years old when I got my first set of roller skates.  I don't remember when or why my parents got them for me. Probably they were one of my birthday presents since my birthday is in the spring.

Those roller skates did not come already attached to a pair of shoes. Instead they were metal wheels that I had to strap to my shoes.  Evidently it didn't take me too long to master the use of those wheels. I have some fond memories of a group of us kids going up and down the streets on our roller skates.  One drive way that we were particularly fond of was on a small incline with lines in the concrete.  Going down that drive way gave a pleasant tickling sensation to our feet.

When I was in my early teens I made the transition to skating in a roller skating rink.  It did not take me long to learn that skating in a rink was entirely different from skating on the streets.  It took me a few tumbles before I finally mastered the art of whirling around on those wooden wheels. 

The skates we had in those days had this similarity to the ones we used on the street--they did not come attached to shoes.  We had to use a special key to clamp them to our shoes.  If we didn't get them clamped on tightly enough, they would come off in the middle of the rink.  It was a big improvement when we could get shoes with the wheels already attached to them. 

It was quite the popular thing for many years for church youth groups to rent a roller skating rink for an evening.  In some areas where I ministered we had monthly skating parties.  Before the evening was over everyone was asked to stop skating for a few minutes while someone in charge would lead in a short devotional period.

The first roller skates were invented in the 1700's by an unknown Dutchman who wanted to ice skate in the summer time.  He accomplished this by nailing wooden spools to strips of wood and attaching them to his shoes.   The first skates with metal wheels were invented in 1760 by an Englishman by the name of Joseph Merlin.  Shortly after creating his shoes with metal wheels he decided to make a grand entrance to a masquerade party wearing his new invention.  He had one problem--he did not know how to stop on those wheels and crashed into a very expensive wall-length mirror.  We can humorously say, "That was the way he crashed into society."

Over the years many important improvements have been made in roller skates.  We have gone from wooden to metal to plastic wheels. I went on-line to one large box store and found out that they offered almost 600 different varieties of skates.

I think I could still maneuver my way around a skating rink with four wheels under each shoe.  I am not sure, however, how I would fare with the modern skates with five or six wheels in a straight line under the shoe.  At my advanced age, I doubt very seriously that I am going to try.  But then, I just might.

Chapter Two - by Bill Venrick

Bob has written about skating on the streets as well as the rink but to be specific, roller rink skating was a bit different because you could not use your "metal-wheel street skates" on the wooden floors of the roller rink. I too was among the youthful crowd who enjoyed going to the roller rink and getting a special kind of skates clamped to your shoes. I especially remember when the "skate boys" (the employees of the skating rink) would get a bit over-zealous and wind that crank a bit tight and your shoe soles almost started to fold under!

Nothing could beat the rush of excitement of being on wheels going in a cooperative ring with a hundred other kids around a huge room that had special hardwood floors that were especially conditioned and serviced to withstand such abuse of thousands of wooden wheels making paths that certainly must have created micro indentations in the wooden floors. We never gave that a thought though because it was such a thrill to do all sorts of special rink feats like crossing your leg over the other as you made the turns - and as Bob said, a spill would occasionally remind you that such feats needed a little more practice. There were always the regulars, who must have "lived there" because they could skate backwards and do all the sashaying possible only by the best roller rink regulars that made us ogle with envy.

As you may recall, those of you are enjoying this trip back memory lane, during the evening of skating, an organist (as it was in our skating rink) would be playing throughout the evening. At a specified time time in the evening, it was announced (on the speaker. system) we would reverse our direction and instead of skating clockwise, we would all change, and begin skating counter-clockwise. This little shift in direction made you have to relearn that cross-over trick with the legs and ooops, down we would go until we got used to that technique of crossing one leg with the other.

I think the biggest thrill of all was when we finished skating for the night, they would un-clamp those special skates from our street-shoes and as you walked out of the rink you felt like you still had the skates on and you were walking on about three inches of air.

What Bob wrote about the origin of roller skates was news to me but when he mentioned ice skates I was immediately reminded of my father (who was born in 1901) telling about his winter fun. Winters must have been a lot different in those days; no great efforts were made to clear the streets or use salt and mobile snowplows - of course, there were not that many cars then. Dad told me about skating several miles "up the river" or "up the canals" (the canal transportation system had been phased out just decades before) and those ice covered water-ways were just the ticket for a day's enjoyment of ice skating. As mentioned about roller skates being attached to your street shoes, that is the way most ice skates were then too (some exceptions may have existed for the rich kids) and you used a special key to clamp your ice skates onto your shoes or or used leather straps with buckles.

As with roller skates first being clamped onto street shoes, and later a special shoe was developed onto which the skates were attached to the shoe, the ice skates went through a similar evolution. Reading further in the Wikipedia link, below, you will discover a common thread of circumstance about "how things got started" and ice skating originally was enjoyed as early as 1000 BC. Many years later when folk in the Netherlands introduced the sport to the British aristocracy it was soon enjoyed by all walks of life. However, and this was a surprise to me, in other places early on ice skating was limited to members of the upper classes. Humm? Sounds a bit familiar to certain sports or entertainment that only the elite consider themselves as proper participants - nah, that couldn't be, could it???

Pleasant memories to you all -- THE WORDWRIGHT

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Further resources and a necessary caveat (regarding dangers of ice skating) can be found by visiting Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Key words - ICE SKATING