The kids and I went skating yesterday and it was so much fun. Funny how the kids think quad skates are so tricky and here I can’t imagine trying to stay up on the in-lines that they prefer.
It was really fun to watch the kids and their skating styles.
Jack--the Rico Suave. He skates never alone and only aside his friend that is a girl. He pays about 1/10th of a millisecond of attention to his mom the entire afternoon and that’s when she buys pizza. Let’s just say, he’s smooth on his skates and with the girls.
Grant--the Old Man. His behind sticks out and he leans over his feet and holds his whole body stiff as an arthritic eighty-nine year old. He goes around and around with absolutely no change in his posture, no change in his his speed. Just round and round.
Caroline--Ms. Drama Restrained. The normally all-out-there girl surprisingly holds back on the skates. Still a bit unsure of her skills, she is mostly all-business all of the time, concentrating on her balance and successfully avoiding collisions.
Sam--the Jogger (or should I say Sprinter?) Skater. The kid just runs. On his skates! He literally picks up each foot, leg bent at the knee, and plants it down on the floor like he’s running the 50 yard dash in the Olympics. He then gets a bit lot wobbly after a succession of about four of these steps so he wildly flails his arms which sometimes helps him regain his balance and he then starts the sequence all over again, or else he lunges into the wall and physically stops himself until he can gain control over his body, or falls down flat, whichever happens first. All the while, he’s doing this with a big, beaming smile, unless he falls and then he laughs.
So, needless to say, I enjoyed watching the kids and making my own rounds on my old-fashioned quad skates. Such fun exercise! Except it would have helped if the music was up to my skating standards. I don’t ask for much—it can be current pop stuff, old songs, whatever, but please let it have some movement.
Today they played country and slow song after slow song. For example:
- Picture by Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock. Eww.
- Closing Time by Semisonic
And their notable upbeat tune was Who Let the Dogs Out. ?!! Hello, year 2000, GOODBYE, and this is what Wiki says about that song:
In a poll conducted in 2007 by Rolling Stone to identify the 20 most annoying songs, Who Let the Dogs Out was ranked third. It was also ranked first on Spinner's 2008 list of "Top 20 Worst Songs Ever".
Yes, that’s what I thought, too.
It got me longing for the heydays of my skating world past. Me in 1979, with my huge, swirled-color plastic comb sticking tall out of the pocket of my skin-tight Chic jeans, skating to songs like:
Bad Girls AND Dim All the Lights AND Hot Stuff AND Heaven Knows - Donna Summer**** Yes, long live my Disco Queen!
Born to Be Alive - Patrick Hernandez*** Knock On Wood - Amii Stewart*** Ring My Bell - Anita Ward*** Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough AND Rock with You - Michael Jackson*** 
Goodbye Stranger AND The Logical Song AND Long Way Home - Supertramp*** 
NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH
Dream Police AND I Want You To Want Me - Cheap Trick** 
Cruel to Be Kind - Nick Lowe** Does Your Mother Know – Abba** Good Girls Don't AND My Sharona - The Knack** 
I Wanna Be Your Lover – Prince** 
Don't Bring Me Down - Electric Light Orchestra Don't Do Me Like That - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground) - The Jacksons I Was Made for Lovin' You – KISS 
Driver's Seat - Sniff 'n' the Tears Ladies Night - Kool & The Gang Fool in the Rain - Led Zeppelin Boogie Wonderland - Earth, Wind & Fire Heart of Glass AND One Way or Another - Blondie 
I Need a Lover - John Cougar Mellencamp Every Time I Think of You - The Babys Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' – Journey Good Times - Chic Pop Muzik – M Let's Go - The Cars 
**= A personal favorite
***=I really loved it
****=I can’t imagine life without her
Songs from this era, gosh, I remember them so very vividly. I hung onto every visual and auditory second of American Bandstand faithfully each Saturday and listened to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 on the radio religiously every weekend. There exist actual notebooks that I recorded the Top 20 into weekly from probably 1979 to 1985. I even made my own written, formal predictions for the following week’s Top 20 and took it all very seriously. I had competitions with a couple of my friends, Danny Rogers and Randy Fatheree, to see whose predictions were most accurate. This was the age that I was really, really beginning to get into my music.
Ah, to lace up a pair of skates, wearing those tight jeans and big, honking tinted-lens glasses with my feathered hair blowing back in the cool skate wind while the strobe lights and disco ball flashed…ah, to be able relive those days again.
So you see, my local YMCA with a wonderful skating floor but lousy skating tunes, it really is all about the music.
Give these kids of mine something to remember.
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