Darlings, darlings, darlings I must tell you a story, or at least do something to get rid of Earl.
Hmmm, roller-skating is in my brain for some reason. Lets go with that, shall we poppets?
Roller-skating was a large part of growing up in the south for me. I had spent most of my youth skating on ice (usually thin - har har), roller-skating on driveways and around my mother in the kitchen.
I was born in the early 1970s and I was all about dance and movement. Just like the Bee Gees and John Travolta.
I thought we had a deal, you and me no making fun of the afflicted.
Of course my knowledge about Saturday Night Fever was relegated to what I saw on movie posters and television commercials as I was not allowed anywhere near the theater to see some poor chunky girl get handed her self-esteem in the back seat of a Chevy on a cold New York evening. I was five. I needed to save some of that mystery, yanno? So my knowledge of John Travolta was this ethereal man in a crisp white suit with a black shirt striking a pose on a lighted box dance floor. How cool would that be? His partner, who cared what her name was, thin and beautiful (Vaselineｮ on the camera, yeah, I know that now where the hell was her jockey?) being spun around to More Than a Woman. It was all so so
Ok, so maybe I just wanted to be twirled.
Little side note for yall here: We (my little immediate family) used to go visit my paternal grandparents in a tiny North Georgia town just about every other weekend when I was growing up in Marietta, Ga. There was a little roller rink in that tiny town of Hartwell and my parents, my grandparents, my aunt, my uncle and my first cousin took my sister and I to go roller-skating one evening. Before we went in, after my sister and I had been begging to go for months, my parents, grandparents and aunt and uncle warned my sister and I that the reason that we had not been allowed to go was because the roller rink was a normal spot for rednecks to hang out and it was kind of a rough place, but that we would all go together.
We all loaded up in the trucks and headed up to the roller rink. Piled out, went inside, got our skates on and my sister and I took to the floor.
We made several circuits of the roller rink, looking around at everyone in the place and then we came back to my parents and the rest of the brood and announced loudly when the DJ just took the record off the turntable
I DONT SEE ANYBODY WITH A RED NECK IN HERE!
Back on track
A few years later in 1980 everything in Atlanta was all about Xanadu or this hot spot I heard about on Z-93 called Sugar Daddys. Apparently it was the dance club/skating rink for the cats in the know. I wanted to be a cat in the know dammit!
Watch my moves! Or, better yet, this painfully choreographed diddy that I put together for the 5th grade talent show. Performed to, no other than the title track to Xanadu. Yes, I am mimicking Olivia Newton John. Yes, I have a multi-colored scarf and purple leg warmers.
(We had a deal, no laughing.)
I was dying, DYING to be on a box-lit dance floor or on a smooth wooden roller rink with my friends.
I got my wish.
Our school had a Friday night Skate Night and most of the birthday parties that were had were either at the local put-putt or on a Saturday at the local roller-rink. We were so wee. But we were hot, HAWT. Flying around those smooth wooden boards with our brown rented (gag) roller-skates or our pretty white (yay!) roller-skates with colored pompoms with bells tied to the front of them (double yay!).
Tiny little Gloria Vanderbelt jeans, size 10 slim and a sailor shirt.
Did I just say sailor shirt? Yes, shut up.
Practicing on the figure 8 markers in the middle. Backwards, forwards, looking like an X. Praying that Neil Duncan* would ask me to couple skate when Every Women in the World came on or something equally as sappy or by Air Supply. Pounding our little fists in the air to Stroke Man by Billy Squire and having no clue what he was talking about. Squealing when the Gap Band came on with You Dropped a Bomb on Me the best.
I am Iron Man. What? You are who?
Going into the arcade to play games. Pac-Man, Tron, Centipede. All the greats. But the real treat was taking off your skates and going behind the sound booth into the dance floor room. A raised platform with three levels, each one with lighted squares, mirrored walls and three mirrored balls hanging from the ceiling. If Deney Terrio could only see me now hed shit his tight-ass pants.
We moved to Texas shortly after my foray into that awesome skating rink, but I never forgot it.
Actually, when I was in high school, I was actually a floor guard at a local skating rink part time.
Oh, Holy shit yall yall Oh Yall. I was searching for oh, it is still there. Look! Sparkles in Marietta, GA (link has audio, and I may cry.)
*By the power of Google, Neil Duncan
if you find this and you were my first kiss in Marietta, GA... Holy shit.