De La Soul – A Roller Skating Jam Named ‘Saturdays’

I am halfway through my downloads from De La Soul, who are giving away all their albums for free today. Happy Valentine’s Day!

I used to be a roller skating fiend when I was in junior high. My best friend lived up the street and we would get home from school and lace up our skates and hit the street. We took a boom box outside and made up skating routines to our favorite songs (I can still remember parts of the one that we did to Blondie’s The Tide is High). It was because of us that the local Gristede’s instituted a No Roller Skating policy inside the store.

My skates were the sneaker style, bright yellow with rainbow stripes on the side like a pair of fake Adidas with bright yellow wheels and a matching yellow stopper. I loved those skates. They were sitting in my mother’s basement until just a few years ago when I allowed her to give them to Goodwill.

There’s a roller rink still very much alive not far from me. Our schools have skating parties to raise money for the PTO and it’s a popular birthday party spot. My daughter was first invited to a roller rink party four years ago but she didn’t know how to skate. Luckily we had a lot of lead time so I took her to the rink every weekend before the party to teach her how to skate. Once she mastered it, she loved it. We had her birthday party there later that year and bought her a pair of roller skates for her birthday that year.

It’s such a time warp in there. They bust out the old disco tunes towards the end of the skate session so you could almost think you’re back in the day with the Village People and Michael Jackson playing on the sound system. Next time maybe I’ll put in a request for this song.