(Taken from my diary, 1978)
I am sneaking gradually up on my 50th birthday. It sounds pretty ancient, but feels good that I have come this far. Half a century—my God! They say our life span should be 120 years—if so, I’m still a babe in the woods.
Last month I started the grandsons on roller skating lessons. After the lesson I free skate with them, and it is so much fun I’m asking for roller skates of my own for my birthday, white ones of course.
I went my myself to the rink a week ago, and it felt like flying! Roller skates were an extension of my legs when I was a child, and then ice skates joined them. Until I got my first bike, roller skates were my mode of transportation.
Joanie has been taking her granddaughter for lessons too. Last week we decided to come skate and then go to lunch in honor of our birthdays. Hers is March 29, and mine April 2, but she is only 48.
She picked my up in the rain, and when we arrived at the rink, out jumped eight of my friends including my dear daughter Jan, who drove all the way up from Ben Lomond so early in the morning.
Joanie had arranged a surprise skating party and it was a big surprise to see how many of us remembered how to skate. We all remembered having a skate key hanging around our necks on a dirty cotton string. After skating for a couple of hours we all went back to her house for a birthday lunch.
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Fast forward through 37 years of Life.
A kaleidoscopic look at years of sadness and joy, during which small roller skaters grew up and had children of their own, and yet we somehow still remained 50. It must be a trick of nature.
We were building a large room addition at the time of the birthday, and were able to have own skating parties on the large cement floor, before the tiles were installed. I think all the kids thought everybody had their own skating rink in their house.
I cleaned out some closets today with stuff destined for the thrift shop, and found the white roller skates I had been given for the long ago birthday. Shortly after they were in my possession I tripped and fell and broke my elbow, and they were forever relegated to the back of the closet, a reminder of early skating parties.
Two weeks ago we said goodbye to our dear friend Joanie. I hope she knew how many times I thought of flying around the rink with her.
Pachofa-Unfinished 
Great reminiscence Kayti. How wonderful to have re-discovered your skating boots. We too are packing bags for thrift and charity, too many goodbyes of late and far too few weddings.
Our grandsons are on skate boards and I have two of them in the garage for when they come over. They do the most death defying jumps and tricks on them. Helvi can’t watch it but i urge them on to even greater heights. They are brave.
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Our biggest bravest skateboarder grew to be a big surfer hitting the big waves. It’s hard to watch sometimes though isn’t it?
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Love your new photo, Kayti. Wish I could look at it a little bigger but clicking on it just brings me to this page.
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Thanks Joan. I’m glad you got to this page!
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Beautiful, Kayti. Wonderful to be able to read this old diary and relive your life and friendship.
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I was looking for something else and ran across this one. Now I have to go back and search some for what I missed. It’s like looking into someone else’s life. You forget so much. I was looking through an old manuscript for a name I had forgotten. It brought back a whole other life.
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Before there were skating parties with school chums at the rink, there were the clamp-on skates with the key, also around the neck, and also on a string. In the winter, I’d skate in the basement. There wasn’t a lot of room, and I had to go around a lot of things, but it was smoothly surfaced, and fun.
We skated for birthday parties, church youth parties, and just weekend get-togethers. Now that I think about it, we did the bulk of our skating in the summer, even at the rink. Winter was for ice skating and sledding, and walking home under cold moons listening to the snow crunch.
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Yes, mine were clamp-on skates as a child too. I never had a skating party as a child. This was my first although when I lived in Connecticut we lived on a lake which froze and I skated to school. After school there was usually a hockey game. Living in snow cuntry gives a whole different season of fun.
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❤
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