Love and Roller Skates: Tales of Finding Teen Love

It’s summertime in the ‘burg, circa 1975; the air is fresh and warm; ships and small craft are traversing the mighty St. Lawerence behind my home which was Ashley’s Motel on Route 37 (the home, not the motel). The biblical-level curse of the shad flies has passed, with billions of their bodies strewn all over, leaving behind a carpet of ex-bugs that crunched underfoot like nature's version of bubble wrap. Guys my age are fishing, riding mini-bikes, hunting/trapping, or raising hell as boys did back then. Truckers roaring past on Route 37, mom making up rooms as the chambermaid of our motel, people going about their lives,

  As for me, I’m sitting on the roof of the motel, having secretly put up a ladder to get there, risking my mom’s certain admonition of cervical trauma with “You’ll break your neck!” (a fractured tibia and multiple contusions were never considered as a worthy warning). I’m there with my Radio Shack walkie-talkie CB radio in hand, trying to talk to girls in Canada, a straight shot across the river. I was about 15 at the time, and starting to show more of an interest in girls than my Tonka trucks. CB radios were the rage back then; the cell phones and social media of our time, if only in an audio sense. People had their “handles” - their on-air names. My handle was Chevy Van, inspired by Sammy Johns' song, which, much like my attempts at cross-border romance, mostly ended in radio silence.

  I eventually convinced my mother to get a real base station radio complete with a large antenna, once we left the motel and landed on Hamilton Street in the ‘burg. No more risking life and limb (not to mention burns from asphalt shingles) on the roof. There I was, a virtual Wolfman Jack of the North Country, trying to make my mark on the airwaves, or better yet, to swoon the ladies. Of course, some guys had to have the bigger, more powerful rigs to transmit, such as my bestie Ed and the bonafide 1000-watt radio station of WSLB, while I had my little 5-watt dynamo. However, it mattered not how big my antenna was, getting girls was never easy; few guys had that secret something girls found attractive.

 Fortunately, chatting on the CB was not our only way to interact with the ladies.

 Jim and I would roller skate quite a bit at the Oddfellows Hall, a large metal building venue, used often for Bingo, it was complete with disco lights, a nice sound system, and leather boot skates you could rent. After returning them, the guy behind the counter would spray inside them with something that must have been a combo of a fungicide, odor killer and maybe Agent Orange, spraying enough so it would shoot back out the boot, confirming the eradication of any offending bacteria, or small animal.

  Skating was a combination of dancing, showing off, and risking injury, or sitting along the rink, pretending you were about to skate, but you were so bad that you didn’t want to risk looking ridiculous. Some referees would skate about, kicking out show-off boys trying all kinds of stuff to try to bend the laws of physics and tendons. There would be couples-only skates, boys only, girls only, and all skate. Skating as a couple was either done the simple way - holding hands side by side - or, one person, typically the guy - would skate backward embracing his girl in a semi-close dance posture, risking humiliation and a back injury so horrendous, Quasimodo would look the model of fine posture, should he run into someone or something, taking the hapless girl down with him, though she could depend on her big hair style to protect against head trauma.

  Of course, the school was the main thoroughfare to see and be seen in the world of teendom. Good old OFA, a school that was so large, by the time you walked from one end to another you went up a grade. The pool was a main feature of the school; a large room that increased the ambient humidity in the hallway next to it, animals from a rain forest could sometimes be found, and a sting of chlorine so strong, that janitors could be seen touching up paint frequently. Boys will recall leaving it, soaking wet and warm, to run up the stairs to the boy’s locker room, being almost frozen to death, as that stairwell was on the outside wall of the building, unheated.

  Gym dances had become a thing of the past, casualties of the raucous legacy left by previous generations. Thus, our romantic endeavors were confined to the less glamorous locales of classrooms, hallways, and, if you were lucky, the occasional shared homeroom. Many of us sought love in neighboring towns – a strategic move that minimized awkward post-breakup encounters in the corridors.

  Seems like many kids opted to find romantic partners in surrounding towns, as I did in Lisbon, and of course, Prescott. It was a safer bet because if you broke up, you didn’t still have to see them every day at school, always a land mine in the field of love. I rode my bike many times to Prescott; one time walked over and back, about 8 miles each way. Often, I would go over with Jim, who had a girlfriend who was good friends with my girlfriend.

 Getting a car - now that’s when things really got into high gear, pun actually intended. Bench seats were still a thing back then and if a girl sat next to the guy close in the bench seat, well that was a sure sign things were pretty serious. A fine stereo, gas in the tank, a valid license, paid insurance - that’s all you needed in the world to be a happy teen. Having a car meant going where you two wanted to go, which for many was exploring the side roads of the ‘burg and stopping at night to…view the stars. A dark night, your girl, and Eddie Money belting out “𝘛𝘸𝘰 𝘛𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘦” on PAC-93.

  Ah, the memories of young love.