Roller Booger

Recently I took my kids to the roller skating rink.  Nothing has changed since my first experience almost 30 years ago.  There is no new technology or groundbreaking discoveries that have revolutionized the roller skating experience.  It has always been the same thing a bunch of angst teen of all ages going around in a circle with wheels on their feet.  Back in the day it was kids with big hairbrushes in their back pockets, who could skate backwards or forwards.  Every now and then they turn the lights out with the disco ball effect for some slow music.  The snack bar still serves the same crappy pizza and the arcade still has the same games.

That is the great thing about roller skating rinks.  It wasn't about anything more than being a teenager and the experience of going.  My first experience was when I was in 6th grade and I hooked up with an 8th grader.  She was a promiscuous girl who had been around the rink (and the block).  It brought me my first French Kiss.   I remember the lights being out and her asking me genitalia questions that I had no way knowing what to say.  So I went with over exaggeration, which seemed to work.

The roller rink is also a place that brought together kids from different schools and zipcodes.  Basically it was the Facebook/Craigslist of the 70s & 80s.

It also brought great 80 style movies focused around roller skating.  Like the cult hit Roller Boogie starring Linda Blair, same actress which threw up on the priest in the Excorsist.

Roller skating was a place that didn't need gimmicks and special effects to draw a crowd.  You didn't even have to be good at.  You just had to show up.  The real appeal to roller skating was bringing kids from all walks of life to a world that goes around and around and around, even if it is only for one night.