When I was 9, this place was called the "Skate Ranch" and it was THE place to be. I can remember begging my Mom to drop me off there so I could meet up with friends and each time she would tell me, "No, it is too dangerous there -- you will get kidnapped!" On a few occasions, instead of dropping me off, she would take me there on Thursdays after school (Thursdays were 1:30 early dismissals back then) and I would skate for a few hours under her watchful eye with my best friend of the week listening to Cindy Lauper and Madonna songs.
Tonight when I walked in, I couldn't believe how much the place had NOT changed. Everything was pretty much the same, except instead of the brown and orange paint and carpeting, everything was painted in 90's neon colors with black carpet. And instead of Madonna playing, it was Britney.
Since I was there purely as a guest, I took the opportunity to bring my Rollerblades and take a ride back in time on the still slick wooden rink. After about 2 times around, I heard my name being called from my 9 year old neighbor.
"Michelle! Can you help Ragan put on her skates?"
I rolled over to a 6 year old tow headed little girl who was sitting on the ground trying with all her might to get those cinder blocks with wheels onto her feet. While I was lacing her up, her blue eyes looked up at me and she said all excited, "I've never been skating before!"
This caused me to instantly calculate in my brain the following: If her parents aren't around to help her with her laces, who the heck is going to teach her how to skate?!
So I very calmly asked, "Ragan, is your Mommy here?"
And she goes, "No, she dropped me off. My big sister is here, but she doesn't know how to skate either!"
At that, I turned around and noticed another blue-eyed, blond haired angelic face stumbling and clunking her way around the rink. With the laces tied, I resigned myself to the fact that I would be this child's new tutor and I promptly grabbed her hand and said, "Let's start out slow, k?"
My lord. I never knew how impossible it would be to teach a kid to roller skate. Since I had not roller bladed in two years, I was pretty wobbly myself and I had this 40 pound slippery piece of linguine attached to my hand that was clinging to me as if her life depended on it!
After about 4 trips around the rink of Ragan pulling and slipping and falling -- she looked up at me beaming and goes, "I think I'm getting better!" Bless her heart. After another trip around, I escorted her over the "wall of safety" and instructed her to hold onto it and I would be back for her. Turns out, letting her go was the best thing I could have done. She mustered up a lot of confidence after that and managed to skate the rest of the time by herself -- granted she was more stumbling around than rolling, but at least she was doing that on her own. I admired her for that -- I am not sure I would have been able to have a total stranger teach me to rollerskate at that age without my parents around.
At the end of the party, she came up to me and said, "What's your name?" I told her it was Michelle. She just looked at me and said, "Hi." Too cute. I told her she did really well skating and she just radiated a huge smile.
It was a fun time overall -- I'm glad I went. And since I am 29 and 11.5/12ths right now and NOT 30, I figured I could still get away with skating with a bunch of 9 year olds and still have fun.
2 comments:
...if only you could have taught ME how to skate
I know -- I thought about you the whole time too, thinking back to that fateful day. I guess I failed at teaching you how to sled too!
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