The Skate Key

Back in the ‘50s, play groups had a pecking order. I suppose they still do, but suspect the criteria for superiority has shifted somewhat earlier toward the adolescent emphasis on popularity and physical strength. Back then, for youngsters, it tilted toward age and possessions—especially the coveted skate key.

I learned to roller skate in front of my house in our brand new, post war, veteran based suburb, on a freshly poured, cement sidewalk that stretched down the block. Our skates were shiny, steel bands that we were allowed to clamp onto last year’s school shoes.

Now each pair of skates was sold with its own skate key, that was used to adjust the length and width, but somehow those keys mysteriously disappeared until there was only one kid on the block that still had one. The problem was that these skates needed constant readjustments, particularly if you put on a different pair of shoes.

We didn’t have much to choose from as far as shoes went. I think we were lucky to get two or three pairs a year so it was important that we took care of them to make them last! At the end of summer, right before the first day of school, we were trotted down to the shoe store to be fitted for our school shoes.

Once we were measured for the correct size, by the salesman with his magical instrument and by mom with her practiced, thumb press at the toe, and she had selected the style, we were finally issued our new shoes—one size bigger—so there would be room to grow! The new school shoes would be too roomy in the fall and too tight by spring, but by then the scuffed, leather uppers would be an almost perfect surface for clamping skates to.

Woe to the child who was foolish enough to attempt to use their Sunday school shoes for skating. You were bound to meet with disaster. If your parents didn’t grab you by the back of the neck and send you back in the house to put on your play shoes, i.e. last year’s school shoes, you were lucky to get down one concrete square before the slick, patent leather slid out of the clamps and the skate's leather strap was twisting around your ankle while you nursed yet another bloody knee from slamming into the sidewalk.

Besides which, because we wore them so seldom, we usually outgrew our Sunday shoes before we wore them out. We certainly were not allowed to mar them with skate clamps since our ‘good’ shoes were destined to be passed on to a younger sibling or a friend’s child.

At the end of the school year, we went back to the shoe store for Keds. This time we were allowed to have them in the correct size, since they only had to last for a few months and we went barefoot as often as possible. The relatively thin material in even the best of tennis shoes was also a very poor choice for skating.

One, the top of the clamps would rub and tear at the cloth over your toes, and two, the rubber soles did not provide a firm seat for the base of the clamps. I’m not saying I never skated in tennis shoes, but I have to admit I have scars to prove how foolish it was.

I tried to be careful to keep my skate keys from wandering off, but sometimes I was at the mercy of a friend who had one when I did not. You always had to wait while they fine tuned their adjustments before you could do yours and actually start skating. Inevitably, you would rush when it finally was your turn to borrow the key and then you’d trip over the first seam in the sidewalk and one of your skates would come off. If you were too impatient to wait, you could use your fingers to turn the wing nuts, but you could never get them twisted tight enough to keep them from rattling open and then down you would go!

The friends and neighbors I played with loved to skate, but we also put on performances to entertain our parents at parties. The oldest, or most dominate, child in the group organized these impromptu events. Sometimes we recited poems or sang. Sometimes we recreated fairy tales or stories we read in classic comics.

We’d rehearse, hang an old quilt over the clothes line in the basement and call our audience away from their card game or conversations to watch our performance. Regardless of how many lines were forgotten or how off-key the song, we were rewarded with a rousing round of applause. I think our parents were simply grateful we were occupied in something positive and not getting into mischief, which we also did more often than they liked.

I sometimes wish there was a skate key that would fit other things in my life.

I would use it to tighten my waistline and flabby arms, although some good, old-fashioned skating could take care of that!

I would use it to help me remember the exact word I want to use, although it usually comes back to me well after the conversation is over.

I would use it to strengthen my relationships and to draw the people I love closer to me, in distance and understanding, although I realize that involves a mutual desire on both parts.

I would use it to clamp onto my desire to stay true to myself, but even as I write this, I can see that after a lifetime of being a people pleaser, to my own detriment, this is one lesson I have finally achieved.

Love me, or not. Like me or not. Approve, or not. That’s up to you.

I am my own person. Take it or leave it. This is who I am.