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.
