Roller Skates

Growing up on a farm somewhat remote from any urban area, much of the fun we had we invented ourselves. There were three of us, an older sister, a middle brother, and myself, the youngest son of the family.

When we were quite young our parents bought each of us roller skates. Not the kind that kids have now, made of colorful plastic with four in line wheels. Ours were the metal kind that came with a key. The skates were designed to fit over the sole of a shoe, preferably one with a stiff leather sole. A skate key was used to tighten a couple of thingies over the toe part of the shoe, actually the shoe was wedged in between the thingies that never did hold very well. There was a leather strap that came up from the back of the skate around the ankle. This was designed so that when the toe thingies let go the skate couldn’t get away from the foot and would come up and smack us in the ankle.

Usually the key was hidden away somewhere for safe keeping apart from the skates. We usually took more time to find the key than we actually skated. If we couldn’t find the key, we resorted to using one of Dad’s Crescent wrenches in place of the key until the wrench was lost. We probably put it in the same place as the key.

We couldn’t use these skates in the house because the metal wheels would mar the linoleum floors. We skated outside on the sidewalk, the brick sidewalk, the brick sidewalk with the grass growing between the bricks. It wasn’t very smooth but it was better than the gravel driveway. Sometimes we would use them on the cement floor of the chicken house after we had cleared away all the chicken poop. The smell was somewhat offensive to the olfactory sensors not to mention it was not a good place to have the toe thingies let go, fall down and get smacked in the ankle. We then had no clean hands to wipe away the tears.

The first task at hand was to learn how to get them going. As with all novice skaters, it was easy to get one to move, then the other, without getting anywhere, kind of a foot shuffle in place. We finally learned to push off with one foot, then push with the same foot again and again. The other foot just kind of tagged along for the ride. Then one of the toe thingies would let go and here comes a banged up knee cap. So we get up and walk on one skate and one foot back to the key with the other skate tagging along strapped to the ankle.

After getting them going, we had to turn somehow, the house, the fence gate, or a sibling was coming up fast. Usually we just ran into whatever was unfortunate enough to be in front of us, turn 180 degrees and do it all again. Oops, there goes the toe thingies again, ouch. Back to the key.

Which brings us to stopping the danged things. As with skating anywhere, it was helpful to learn to stop the things before running into someone or something. These skates didn’t have the rubber stoppers under the toes like the fancy skates at the rink in town. With these it was user beware. Finally we learned that if we kind of dragged one skate kind of sideways it would slow us down. Unfortunately, the other skate wanted to keep going and we did kind of a splits there on the sidewalk. Ouch, there goes the toe thingies again. Back to the key.

I have no idea where those skates are now, maybe hanging on the wall of a restaurant somewhere. As with so many objects of our past, they are relegated to the memory. We had a lot of fun with them, as long as the toe thingies didn’t let go.