Old School

The sun is shining and the weather is warm here in New York City. Finally, after bringing my roller skates (actually, my sister's roller skates because she took mine with her to Iowa) from my parents' house in Chicago to New York in January, I could lace them onto my feet and glide over the pathways of Central Park. It would be glorious!

Except that I haven't rolled skated outside in about 15 years. And there are a lot of hills in Central Park. Plus, while the pavement if not as bad as the scary roads in India, it isn't exactly smooth going. And I forgot how to break. And now that I am old, I am scared of falling. Not even five minutes into my skate, I was pretty sure I was going to fall and crack my head open and die. At the very least, I was sure that I was going to wind up in a full body cast.

Central Park actually has an area that is frequented by old school roller skaters. As I clomped in the grass down a hill along the lower loop road, I decided that it behooved me to head over there. It turned out there was some fundraiser going on in the main area where the skaters congregate, but some folks were skating it up on a flatter side path. I spent my time relearning the tricks of the trade (like stopping) as Led Zepplin played on my iPod. (If I were truly old school, I'd have my GE walkman thing that played cassettes. The cassette door fell off of it years ago in one of the last times I skated outside and tripped on a rock and went flying. It still worked though. Ah, those were the days when they built things to last, I tell ya.) Within 30 minutes I had some of my groove back.

Not that I didn't nearly fall and crack my head open a few times, but it was not terrifying and thus fun. I am excited to go back next weekend.