I was born in 1947, and when I was 18 months old I put on my first pair of roller skates. You see, my mother was a professional Roller Skater instructor. She studied under Betty Lytle who in the 1940’s and 50’s was one of the greatest roller skaters in the world. Back in the day if you bought a pair of skates, chances are that Betty’s name was on the boot of the skate.
Our family which consisted of three Boys and my parents were all roller skaters and put on skates at the age of 18 months and two years old. Our family skated between 5 to 7 nights a week depending on where my mother was working at the time. We use to visit Roller Rinks in the tri state area, (NY, Pa. And NJ.) My mother use to put on shows at different rinks like todays Ice Capes, but on roller skates. We skated in such places as Madison Square Garden, and another place in Phila called Cheevoe where the men skated in tucks and the women in ball gowns. It was a very fancy place.
In 1953 when I was five, I skated my first Competition. I skated in the diaper division in Pennsylvania State championships. Now you have to understand the training that goes into getting ready for something like this. 2 hours in the morning of skating practice, one hour of Ballet, not the standard ballet, I was taught how to point with your feet and hands, and how to stand up straight, so you looked good on the skating floor. Then one hour of what is now called yoga. We learned to stretch and become limber, and then another 2 hours of practice in afternoon. My routine consisted of a series of jumps and spins with backwards skating and series of toe tap skating. I was a skating lion and my costume was made by my mother and grandmother. As I said my mother had many different talents that she learned from her mother.
My hat is off to all those athletes that pursue an Olympic career. Their training must be really intense
The highlight of the night was not winning 2nd place at states but when a friend of the family came over to me and congratulate me. He then asked me if I wanted to go across the road at and airport when he had just bought a new airplane. After all I was 5 years old. The man was a businessman and his name was Mr. Hersey. He was the founder of Hersey’s Chocolate, a family friend of many years of my grandparents. Of course, that didn’t mean much to me at the time.
For the next seven years I worked on my Proficiency awards. This is a series of three dance steps that increased in difficulty as you went up the ladder. A young lady had come into my life as a skating partner and she was new to skating but learned very fast, although we fought like 11-year-olds, but she was one of the best partners I ever had. We were practicing for an upcoming competition doing dance skating. We were really good together except when I pissed her off or she pissed me off which was a lot of time. One day I kicked her skates out from under her and she fell and broke her wrist. I really got it from my father on that one, but we skated the competition with a cast on her wrist and we won first place. she said, ok now I forgive you for breaking my arm. There was another aspect of competition that we haven’t talked about. And that was the music that you skate too. We were searching for just the right music when one day my partner came in and said I found the song. Of course, being 11 I wouldn’t like it because she found it. But when she played the song “Marica” from the movie “West Side Story”, and instrumental version by two pianist, Frenchie and Teicher. When the song started I could feel the routine we had put together and I had to admit it was perfect. I learned a lesson that day, between my mother and my partner, I should just do what I was told.
When I was 17 years my skating career was over as I joined the service. I still watch ice skating on tv and I took up roller balding and that was the extent of my skating. I still think about roller blading when i see a pair of skates at a garage sale, but I know that at my age I don’t heal as fast as I use to and pass them by.
The passion is still there. Sometimes, while listening to the radio I will hear the Theme from Ice Castles, a movie from 1978. I still get chills and the memories come flowing back. Years later I took up country dancing and again was dancing with a group 5 to 6 nights a week. One night a Fred Astire Dance instructor came over and asked me to dance. As we finished a dance, she made a comment about my lead. A lead is what a guy does to let his partner know where she is going on the next turn. She told me that she had never met a person who could lead as strong as I had. I told her about my mother and how she would holler across the skating floor during practice, “she can’t go where she supposes to if you don’t lead her”. I can still hear her in my mine and probably always will. There was another famous saying my mother used on me and it was, “listen to the beat or you will be done before the music”.
There were a few things that I didn’t like about roller skating, like my father would not allow me to skate with anyone who was taller than me, so at 12 years old I got my first girlfriend and she happened to be taller than me. I was not allowed to skate with her, as a matter of fact he didn’t even want me hanging around her. “Men are suppose to be taller”. The other was when my friends were skating and cutting up on floor, I wasn’t allowed to patriciate in it and I may pick up bad habits. One other thing I didn’t like was my mother while teaching her class would call me out on the floor to demonstrate something. I felt like I was showing off. Another time my mother was having a private lesson with one of her life long friends and her partner when I was called out on the floor to skate with my mothers friend. My mother was trying to find out who wasn’t doing their job, as she would say. The dance skating that they were doing was “The Vietnesse Waltz. This was a very difficult dance step. It was also one of my favorite as it was beautiful and Eliquate series of turns and half turns. When I was 8 years old, I asked my mother to teach it to me and she said I was to young but she eventually taught it to me. After we came off the floor the lady said “I want him as a partner” My mother said I know now the problem. Her partner was not turning or leading the lady into her turns. That was the one day I didn’t mine showing off.
Skating was a very important part of my life for a lot of years. The two things I take away from skating is the Self Discipline and the achievements.
One of the last things I will tell you about roller skating or blading is that this exercise will keep you in very good shape. Balance is a big thing when you get older and this will help you remain young. My father was married for the third time on roller skates at the age of 81.
There is something else that came from that time in my life. About three years ago, my brother called me and in a panicked voice said, “you have to call this lady. She says she is our sister”. Being I was the one who has done all the history of the family, I returned her call. It turns out that while I was getting ready in 1953 to do my competition my father had an affair. I investigated the situation and now have a sister who I and my brother are very close too.
It should be noted that my parents divorced when I was 16. I asked my mother before she passed if she knew about my sister and she told me no, however, after her passing I found her biography, and in her biography was the whole story she had written in her own words.
On a sad note, when my mother left my father, she never roller skated again. She took up her music and taught organ and piano until she was 92. When I received her stuff after she passed I found her roller skates in one of the boxes.
TRIVIA the first roller skates were used in a stage production in London in 1743.
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