I had my very own pair of roller skates growing up. I remember they were too big for me for a really long time and that they had red wheels. I also dropped my hamster in one of them when he bite me for no reason. Anyway...
I am pretty sure they were a hand-me-down gift from someone. Again I have no idea who because I didn't have time for those details. But I do remember the days when the skates finally fit.
Rollering skating came pretty naturally to me. (I've always had really good body awareness and control with sports but not with walking. I pretty much have zero depth perception when I'm just existing.) I would skate around the block for so long that my feet would go numb from all the rumbling from the crappy road. I would pretend I was a figure skater, a hockey player, and then a roller derby champion.
I don't know if you remember watching roller derby on TV but I sure do. I wanted to be a derby girl more than life itself. I would watch how gracefully the girls would glide across the floor and then laugh when someone got checked against the floor. I soon began to practice for my roller derby debut...in the trailer.
If you have never been in a trailer, they are not very big. I'm talking a regular trailer here. Not a double-wide. A trailer is a long rectangle broken up into cubes. Cube One: Kitchen. Cube Two: Living Room. Cube Three: My Room. Cube Four: The Smelly Mushroom Room. Cube Five: The Famous Raccoon Bathroom. Cube Six: Mom's Bedroom. The Kitchen/Living Room and Mom's Bedroom where the anchors and all of the rest of the rooms were off the hallway to the left. Linoleum kitchen and hallway with a brief interrupt of linoleum carpet.
I would skate as fast as I could from the kitchen all the way to where the hallway ended at Mom's bedroom and back. Again, and again, and again. I would try to do tricks in the kitchen since it had the most open space. Then I would skate as fast as I could and slam into my Mom's bedroom door; CHECK!
I've always had good endurance as well. I would keep that up for hours. Mom would be yelling for me to stop but if you have ever known a redhead, we do what we want.
I loved those damn skates with the red wheels. I remember when I finally outgrew them. My mom wanted me to throw them away (trust me, they had a full life) but I couldn't. I horded them for as long as a could. When we finally moved out of our trailer my beloved skates "went missing."
And that is the story of my roller derby career. It was awesome.
