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Slice of Life: Skate City

by Laura Wynn

Last week I attended my first “School Skate Night” as an adult. I haven’t been skating for nearly 30 years, so I was surprised to find that Skate City in Overland Park (Formerly Skateland South) looks and smells pretty much the same as I remember. Sure, the pompom display has been replaced with photos of roller derby icons, and the wishing well now houses a mini-arcade, but otherwise: a time capsule.

After lacing my worn rental skates, I grasped the hands of my four children. In chain format we slowly click, click, rolled our way to the smooth rink.

As we entered the floor, a peculiar feeling started to come over me. I can liken it to the Disney commercials where the parent emotionally goes back in time (without the tropical ambiance, of course). I began to have flashes of random memories and long forgotten phrases — shoot the duck, snowball, limbo.

Each circle around the rink seemed to present a different Saturday afternoon of laughter spent in this very place so many years ago. Eating huge pickles with Lori at the end bench. Whoosh! Winning the Shoot the Duck competition against all odds. Whoosh! Requesting a song for the Snowball Skate at the DJ booth...

I was soaring around the rink as if it was 1981, the wind on my 40-year-old face and the smell of musty skates in the air. With a silent squeal I looked down at my own children and wondered why I had deprived them of this experience for so long.

It was then that I realized my children were no longer holding my hands. In fact, they were about halfway back helping up my sobbing 7-year-old who had fallen almost as soon as we entered my retro fantasy stage. I was mentally jamming to “Roxanne” and had failed to notice.

Back from my reminiscent trip, I once again took the tiny hands of my children and we shuffled around the rink at a turtle’s pace. Watching my children so carelessly enjoying the moment, it occurred to me that they were in the process of living what I just relived; the creation of a future memory. My mind wandered again, but this time it flashed forward another 30 years. I could envision my own four children in this exact moment; rollerskating with their own children in this very place. It was easy to imagine them embodied in parents whose actions I watched on this day.

Over there at the very end of the row of benches sat a father who is almost too busy to be here. That’s likely to be my oldest as an adult; smiling with pride and waving at his daughter passing by, then quickly returning to what appears to be an important business call.

Oh! And there’s my 7-year-old as a young father who acts just slightly more like an older brother — swinging a chain of about eight grinning kids around the rink with a mischievous mommy-wouldn’t-like-this smile on his face.

I see my youngest son in the likeness of a father who is slowly skating along the wall, his huge hand instilling confidence into the 5-year-old who doesn’t realize he’s already skating on his own. They likely won’t make it around the rink two times the entire evening. He never looks away; dedicated to the end.

And there goes my baby girl as a doting Mom — rushing onto the floor (despite the whistle of the skate guard) to coddle a fallen skater. She doesn’t recognize that at 10, her daughter has outgrown Mom’s often overzealous nurturing. The OMG look the daughter gives her friends is unnoticed by her Mom, who continues to prod, pat and scrutinize the invisible wound. Seeming to understand, the young recipient of her love smiles softly and kisses her Mother on the cheek before quickly skating away.

At this moment it became very clear to me how quickly time does pass. I’m glad my children held me to my Skate Party promise. I pulled them off the floor and we wheeled over to the concession booth for an oversized (and overpriced) pixie stick. We had to finish them quickly; it was almost time for the Limbo!

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