Roller Rink in Belpre, OH – photo by Harry Barnett

I was born in the Fifties and grew up in the Sixties. It was a fine time to be a kid. We didn’t have a lot of money and we didn’t really go out and do a lot of “stuff”…especially if it cost money. Most of our Saturday nights were either spent at home or at the farm with Grandma and PopPop. During the summer, Saturday wasn’t any different than any other day of the week, except for one thing. Saturday night was “Skate Night” for the cool kids.

I wasn’t…WAS NOT…one of the cool kids. My cousins were cool. I knew people who were cool. But somehow…I missed out on the cool gene. However, when the Stanley’s moved in down the street in the summer of ‘66, I found my partner in crime. Sharon was my age, in my grade. My very fist same-age friend. Everyone else in the neighborhood were either much older, or much younger. We soon became inseparable.

We did everything together. We rode bikes for hours. We took tennis lessons at the town park. We were awful, but we had fun at it. We explored the woods up on the hill above our houses. Even though I couldn’t swim and was terrified of water, we went to the pool and “laid out” in the sun. From first light, off we’d go whenever we could. As long as we were home by the time the street lights came on, we were good.

One of our favorite things to do was go to Cavalier Roller Rink. I was in awe of the older kids who could skate backwards and do spins and never fall down. We were used to those awful metal street skates you crunched down on your shoes with a key. Mine came from the Plaid Stamp store. I can still see them. They were shiny and had a foam pad on the ankle strap that was red plaid. We were really uptown in those, I’m telling ya.

Skating in rink skates was an entirely differently proposition. The floor was smooth as glass and the wheels met the floor with precision. Smooth….and slick as ice. We fell far more than we skated till we finally got the hang of it. I never did get to be a really great skater. I couldn’t spin or skate backwards, but I could skate arm in arm and in long conga lines. We played “Crack the Whip” which was deliciously terrifying when you were on the end of the line.

By the time we were teenagers, there was the typical posturing…trying to attract the eye of someone who interested you. Getting to skate with someone during the “Couples Only” skate was our loftiest goal. We most often sat that one out, munching on popcorn and soft drinks till we could get back out there and zoom around and around. I think back to those Saturday nights with great fondness. For several reasons.

One…I have a birthday coming up soon. Sixty-eight. How that happened…I’ll never know. But it’s been fifty years since we graduated from high school…fifty years ago today, to be exact. It’s been fifty years since I went to a roller rink, too. That’s ok…I don’t miss it. I just miss those days of not being reminded I have knees every time I stand up. I miss long summer days playing in the sun without a care in the world. I miss that feeling of hurrying down the street when you knew the streetlight would be on any minute. The sound of TV’s in people’s houses. The quiet conversations on front porches. The shouts of, “See ya’ tomorrow!” 

There is a whole lotta space in the “dash” between then and now. A lot was done. Many accomplishments. Too many mistakes. A rich tapestry woven with the experiences we’ve all had over these last fifty years. We’ve postponed our 50th High School Reunion till next year due to the uncertainty of Covid over the last year. It takes a lot of money and planning to put on that show, and it would have been terrible to have to cancel. This way we have another year to take off some of this Covid weight! lol

I guess where I’m going with this is…my sweet friend Sharon isn’t doing very well right now. She has some pretty major health issues, then ended up with long haul Covid on top of it so she’s struggling to get better. She has a fighting spirit. After all, at church camp, we were notorious, as our theme song stated…

“We are the Night Owls, Mighty Mighty Night Owls, every where we go-oh, people want to know-oh, who we are, so we tell them….”

Please join me in lifting up my life-long, good time loving, slumber party giving, all night skating, best iced tea making, bike riding bunk mate in earnest prayer that the gifted doctors at Mayo Clinic will fix her up so she can get back to this wonderful life and we can finally go camping together!

I love you, Shubs. Please get well soon!

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“A friend loves at all times……”

Proverbs 17:17 NIV