Highway to heaven on a pair of ball bearing roller skates (Published May 15, 2016 - Binghamton Sunday press)

Highway to heaven on ball bearing roller skates.

by Merlin Lessler

Roller skates were a big deal for kids who grew up in the 40’s and 50’s. We slipped into our first pair when we were kindergarten age. No big deal. No big skill needed. We schlepped about, pretending to glide along like the older kids who had ball bearing in the wheels of their skates. The wheels on our  “baby” skates barely turned at all.

Then came the big day. Move up day. To “ball bearings.” Like most of the toys that came our way back then, they only came on a special occasion: Christmas, Easter or birthday, unless you were lucky enough to break an arm or leg in a bike or tree climbing accident. Then, you could cash in on it. Pity paid. A new toy was a perfect way to speed up ones recovery.  

I received my first pair of ball bearing roller skates on the Easter when I was seven. I still remember that cold April day; I sat on our front step and put them on using a skate key to tighten the toe clamp and buckling a leather strap around my ankle. I stood up, took one step and was instantly airborne. My arms flailed, my legs kicked, and then, WHAM! I fell back to earth, HARD! I knocked the wind out of myself. I thought I was dying. I crawled over to my father and squeaked, “I’m dead!” There wasn’t enough oxygen in my lungs to speak above a whisper.

It took a few weeks, but I eventually got the hang of it. I could glide along a sidewalk like my older sister Madeline and her friends, often sporting a huge scab on one knee or the other. It was freeing, this newfound ability to cover ground with so little effort. It wasn’t on a par with a bicycle, but a close second. That world was different from today's world. If you looked around a

residential neighborhood in Binghamton, or any small town in America, you’d see kids everywhere: gliding by on skates, playing in school yards, whizzing along on bicycles with baseball cards flapping in the spokes, bouncing on pogo sticks, walking on stilts, tossing baseballs and footballs back and forth. Kids, kids, kids! Outside! Moving! Unsupervised!

And, when we were inside, it wasn’t in front of a TV. Our sloth time came when we lay down on the living room rug in front of the radio, listening to Suspense or Captain Midnight. More often than not though, we were in our bedroom or down in the basement when we couldn’t go outside. A basement that bears no resemblance to the finished rec rooms and man caves of today. There was room to skate in mine, as long as I avoided my mother’s ringer washer and the wet clothes hanging from a line strung along the ceiling. It was a good place to “hang out” on a rainy day. It didn’t matter to us what we did, skate, play games, read comic books, as long as we were out from under the thumb of adults. Kids and adults resided in separate worlds back then and both camps liked it that way.

Ball-bearing roller skates expanded our arena. They took us out of the neighborhood to other parts of the city. Most often, mine took me downtown. I lived on a hill, the third house from the top of Chadwick Road on the south side so I had to walk down to Vestal Ave before I put on my skates. And, like all kids, I skated without a helmet, elbow or kneepads. My route downtown took me through the fifth ward shopping district, past Armand Emma’s Drug Store, which was kitty corner from the Grand Theater where Hop-a-long Cassidy and Roy Rogers graced the silver screen most Saturday afternoons. Past the Baby Bear Market, the Busy Bee 5 & 10 cent store and the Fire Station #5 (now the Number 5 Restaurant). Kids from Longfellow and Lincoln Elementary Schools went there on field trips, and once a year, we lined up in front of an open bay with our dogs to get a free rabies shot. (The dogs, not us) I left the south side, crossing the Washington Street Bridge, which carried cars across the river back then, past the statue of a soldier standing on one leg holding a rifle in the middle of Memorial Circle and on to the center of town.

Planter’s Peanuts on Court Street was my first stop, for a free sample from a guy in a giant peanut costume, then on to McLain’s Department store for a ride on the demonstration saddle in the equestrian department and finally to the soda fountain at Woolworth’s or Kresge’s. Kids had freedom in those days. How different it is now. My friend Woody (Walls) and I took it a little too far one Sunday afternoon when we were about five years old; we decided to walk to State Park. We made it across town to Clinton Street before deciding we’d gone far enough. Our parents never knew we left the neighborhood. If a kid did that today his parents would be charged with child neglect. Even dogs had freedom in those days. My dog, Topper, so named because he was the first of seven puppies to climb the basement stairs, accompanied me wherever I went, even downtown. He patiently waited for me on the sidewalk outside a store or movie theater, while I was inside enjoying a special double feature: two cowboy movies and ten cartoons.

I eventually outgrew the roller skates. They weren’t macho enough. I took them apart and nailed them to a couple of boards to make a hot rod. If you couldn’t afford a set of wheels it was another way to get you racing down the steep south side hills. Sometimes making it to the bottom with the vehicle still intact. It was a male right of passage in the 1950’s. I’d love to strap on a pair of those skates today, but I’m sure I’d be airborne all over again. And, this time I might really end up dead.