Roller Derby

First, I'd like to apologize for the misleading title. This is not about roller derby. This is about roller skating. I just wanted a catchy title to draw in the readers. And now that I have your attention, I'll do what I can to hang on to it. For example, I'll start a new paragraph to give the eye a break and create a sense of drama.

I took the boys roller skating.

There. What seems like a common parental activity now seems fascinating, and it's all due to a clever formatting trick. I'll continue to use these tricks throughout to maintain your level of interest.

The boys just got wrist pads for their roller skates (Max) and roller blades (Luke), and they were excited. Excuse me, they were excited!!! So I looked up a roller skating rink using my iPhone, and sure enough, King Skates in Bellevue was open all day on Monday for public skating.

As soon as we walked in, the boys heard their favorite song -- "I Gotta Feelin" by the Black Eyed Peas. They looked out at the lights flashing on the skaters, and you could tell these 6-year-olds thought we had just stumbled into the coolest place on earth.

Observation 1: There are men and women in their 30s and 40s who go to roller skating rinks alone and skate dance. Sometimes they skate backward, and sometimes they skate forward, but they're dancing the whole time. At first, I thought this was strange behavior. And then I thought about it a little more, and thought about the battle against peer pressure and the joy of exercise, and I came to the realization that this was REALLY strange behavior. They should be on a treadmill in a gymnasium.

Observation 2: Pop music from the 70s has an enduring quality that will outlive us all. Did you know our grandchildren's grandchildren will roller blade to "Do the Hustle," "YMCA" and "Dancing Queen"?

Observation 3: There has been some really good pop music made over the last five or thirty years. I can't tell how long some of that pop music was, because I had never heard it. But I found myself snapping my fingers while skating, and then bending my knees a little bit. And then I started to weave my skating pattern just a little bit, and there's no way to weave your skates without getting your hips involved, and before I knew it, all the other skaters had lined up along the wall, and they were clapping in rhythm and shouting encouragement to me whenever my skates left the floor for a double axel or a triple toe loop.

In summary, roller skating is FUN!!!

-