Everybody was home (minus Mark and Allison) for Christmas. Our schedules were such that we would only have one day with the Barneys when their whole family would be in town and our whole family would be in town, so Amber came up with the idea to go roller skating.
Now I'm not sure anyone really appreciates how much roller skating has played a part in our lives. Let's take another trip down memory lane, shall we?
(I actually searched this blog to see if I've written this story before. I couldn't find it anywhere, but please forgive me if I end up repeating myself.)
I was a latch-key kid meaning there were no parents when I got home from school, so I let myself into the house, and entertained and fed myself until my parents got home between 5:30 and 6:00. This started when I was about nine or ten years old and continued until I graduated high school. TV was a good babysitter as was the large freezer stored on our back porch in Lubbock, Texas, filled with Hostess cupcakes and Twinkies. I would watch reruns of I Dream of Jeanie and Bewitched and Gilligan's Island in the afternoon while chowing down on all that unsaturated fat. I didn't just sit in the La-Z-Boys in front of the television console however--I did all kinds of gymnastics on them, usually hanging upside down off the seat to watch the TV shows...upside down.
When that got boring, however, I would pull out my roller skates (with metal wheels). My mother kind of bounced around from one hobby to the next during my childhood (making homemade fruit leather was an interesting couple of months), but there was about a year when my step-father, my mom and I would all head to the roller rink on a Tuesday night for three hours of skating. Yep, that's right kids, M-Boo skated. In fact, I heard my parents tossing around the idea of actually buying a rink at one point. Back to my story.
There was a concrete half court basketball court in our backyard. And it was conveniently surrounded on two sides by our six-foot-high wooden fence. So I would head out there on my roller skates and skate in circles until that got boring, and then I would start shooting baskets while still wearing my roller skates. I won't lie--it didn't take very long for me to get pretty good at making free throws.
Other times, if I didn't want to head outside (it DID snow occasionally in the winter), I would put on a record, and I would sing and compose creative dances around our very spacious living room. The Sound of Music was a popular choice, but there were other ones. You better believe I felt that music.
The best moment though would be when I would put on one of my mom's Chuck Mangione records. Chuck Mangione was a saxophone player whose biggest hit was "Feels So Good" (just typing that title out, the melody starts going through my head). If it was a nice enough day outside, I would put the record on, turn the record player up to maximum volume, leave the French doors open to the outside, don my roller skates, and skate interpretively to my good friend, Chuck on the concrete basketball court.
Oh man, I can see myself as if it was yesterday....and I'm sure my kids are laughing their heads off at the moment, or have their jaws hanging open.
So I've always felt very comfortable roller skating. I'm not so good at it now, but my body isn't exactly a lithe 12-year-old's anymore, but the muscle memory is still there. And how nice that my kids took to it as well.
I don't know how it all started, but both Mark and Johannah ended up working at Penn Skates in State College for several years each. Because of this, we always got free admission, and Penn Skates ended up playing a major part in some of our birthdays and other celebrations. The pinnacle though must have come when Mark ended up ordering his own custom skates--he actually ordered the parts, and the skates had to be assembled. Those Vanillas will live down in infamy...and still reside in his closet. While Hannah doesn't have all the moves that Mark does, she can fly across the rink. And Glo moves too.
So putting my kids out on the rink with the Barneys (who have never skated before)? They were pros for sure. And Sister Barney is good too! You can tell she was also invited to skating birthday parties as a young girl ;-). Layton Barney (who has just returned from his mission, and who is determined to please his mom) was a slow skater, but I don't think I saw him step off the rink for the entire two hours--he just kept going. Their girls were super happy there too. It was the teenagers who just wanted to leave.
Meanwhile, our little Baby couldn't go out on the rink, but she made the most of it:
Afterwards, we headed to The Parlour, right there in Jackson. In the summer, it's impossible to even get a seat or any service, but in the winter it's a bit easier. And it's one of those places where one scoop is worth three at our local Baskin Robbins!
Now I'm not sure anyone really appreciates how much roller skating has played a part in our lives. Let's take another trip down memory lane, shall we?
(I actually searched this blog to see if I've written this story before. I couldn't find it anywhere, but please forgive me if I end up repeating myself.)
I was a latch-key kid meaning there were no parents when I got home from school, so I let myself into the house, and entertained and fed myself until my parents got home between 5:30 and 6:00. This started when I was about nine or ten years old and continued until I graduated high school. TV was a good babysitter as was the large freezer stored on our back porch in Lubbock, Texas, filled with Hostess cupcakes and Twinkies. I would watch reruns of I Dream of Jeanie and Bewitched and Gilligan's Island in the afternoon while chowing down on all that unsaturated fat. I didn't just sit in the La-Z-Boys in front of the television console however--I did all kinds of gymnastics on them, usually hanging upside down off the seat to watch the TV shows...upside down.
When that got boring, however, I would pull out my roller skates (with metal wheels). My mother kind of bounced around from one hobby to the next during my childhood (making homemade fruit leather was an interesting couple of months), but there was about a year when my step-father, my mom and I would all head to the roller rink on a Tuesday night for three hours of skating. Yep, that's right kids, M-Boo skated. In fact, I heard my parents tossing around the idea of actually buying a rink at one point. Back to my story.
There was a concrete half court basketball court in our backyard. And it was conveniently surrounded on two sides by our six-foot-high wooden fence. So I would head out there on my roller skates and skate in circles until that got boring, and then I would start shooting baskets while still wearing my roller skates. I won't lie--it didn't take very long for me to get pretty good at making free throws.
Other times, if I didn't want to head outside (it DID snow occasionally in the winter), I would put on a record, and I would sing and compose creative dances around our very spacious living room. The Sound of Music was a popular choice, but there were other ones. You better believe I felt that music.
The best moment though would be when I would put on one of my mom's Chuck Mangione records. Chuck Mangione was a saxophone player whose biggest hit was "Feels So Good" (just typing that title out, the melody starts going through my head). If it was a nice enough day outside, I would put the record on, turn the record player up to maximum volume, leave the French doors open to the outside, don my roller skates, and skate interpretively to my good friend, Chuck on the concrete basketball court.
Oh man, I can see myself as if it was yesterday....and I'm sure my kids are laughing their heads off at the moment, or have their jaws hanging open.
So I've always felt very comfortable roller skating. I'm not so good at it now, but my body isn't exactly a lithe 12-year-old's anymore, but the muscle memory is still there. And how nice that my kids took to it as well.
I don't know how it all started, but both Mark and Johannah ended up working at Penn Skates in State College for several years each. Because of this, we always got free admission, and Penn Skates ended up playing a major part in some of our birthdays and other celebrations. The pinnacle though must have come when Mark ended up ordering his own custom skates--he actually ordered the parts, and the skates had to be assembled. Those Vanillas will live down in infamy...and still reside in his closet. While Hannah doesn't have all the moves that Mark does, she can fly across the rink. And Glo moves too.
So putting my kids out on the rink with the Barneys (who have never skated before)? They were pros for sure. And Sister Barney is good too! You can tell she was also invited to skating birthday parties as a young girl ;-). Layton Barney (who has just returned from his mission, and who is determined to please his mom) was a slow skater, but I don't think I saw him step off the rink for the entire two hours--he just kept going. Their girls were super happy there too. It was the teenagers who just wanted to leave.
Meanwhile, our little Baby couldn't go out on the rink, but she made the most of it:
Afterwards, we headed to The Parlour, right there in Jackson. In the summer, it's impossible to even get a seat or any service, but in the winter it's a bit easier. And it's one of those places where one scoop is worth three at our local Baskin Robbins!
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