(A little something I found in the Foxfire Archives....)

I used to own my very own roller skates with red sparkle laces.

Oh yes - you didn't realize that the Aimee you've come to know was actually a roller disco queen at one time. Hey, I was like...9 years old - and Xanadu was in the theaters, can you blame me? (And if you don't know what Xanadu is, I'm not 'splaining it to you.)

My mom even took me to roller boogey lessons - where I learned to do the Camel, Shoot the Duck, and Figure 8. In time, I got my own skate case, plastered it with stickers, and was a 'regular' at the rink. I got real daring, and replaced the plain white laces on my skates with glittery red ones, and I would pull on my body leotard with the tiny little ballerina skirt to go skating in. Hmmm - I'm positive I have a picture of me in this very outfit. Dare I dig up that scary little skeleton?

I loved the way the roller rink would smell like Murphy's Oil Soap and Mr. Clean whenever we walked in. We'd stand in line, pay our money ...and knew that there was no leaving once we were in. There was wall to wall shag carpeting everywhere in the 'lace up' area - so even when you had your roller skates on, you had to do this funky little walk til you got to the smooth wooden skate floor. They always had the best disco lights, with a big disco ball right in the middle of the rink. The fun thing to do if you had a good partner was go in the middle right beneath the disco ball, face eachother....crisscross your hands, then start to skate round and round in a tight circle. The more you pulled 'in' with your arms, the faster you went, until you were almost ready to go out of control and fling halfway across the rink. But, just at the last minute - you'd extend your arms, slow down...and just skate off into the boogey wonderland.

There was a little concession stand next to a line of pinball machines. The floor in the concession stand was at a slight incline, and it was bare cement - so every time you crossed over from the shag carpeting to the cement, you'd go sailing right up against the counter with a BANG! I *always* got a blueberry slushie at least some point in the evening. We'd go scoot into one of the four booths that were up along the window looking out to the roller rink. One wall of the concession stand was one of those big wall murals that was supposed to look like you were gazing out on a beach to a tropical sunset. This was so out of place with everything else that I loved it.

There was a "DJ" booth over in the corner of the rink. If you were really brave, you'd skate up to it, get the DJ's attention, and request a song. It was always a rush when they'd actually play it, ESPECIALLY if it was 'couples only'. Over at the opposite end of the rink, high up on the wall...were these big light-up signs that would tell you if it was "ALL SKATE" - "COUPLES ONLY" - "SPEED SKATE" - "GUYS ONLY" - "GIRLS ONLY" - or "SPECIAL". I look back now and grin at the thought of the 'guys only' skate. It was their chance to really impress the girls...and heck, when you are 10 years old...someone sashaying like John Travolta *is* pretty impressive, especially when they're on wheels.

Then one day, we just didn't go back to the rink anymore. My skates got stuffed somewhere in the closet - and the rink got bulldozed, only to have a Wendy's rise up in its ashes.

I wonder if they hear ABBA singing "Dancing Queen" when they're deep frying their onion rings?