Remember when it took forever for the weekend to get here just so you could go roller skating?
Grade school started the best time of our young lives. We skated every Friday, and also sometimes
Saturday night. My friend Keith’s parents, and my folks would take turns taking us out…making that trip down rambling road, to that wonderful rink above Tri State Supply, and the most anticipated event of the week.
Girls choice, boys choice, backwards skate, reverse skate, maybe get to roll the dice with Mr. Yeager for the dice game. Or maybe get chosen to get to lead the Grand March with either Mr. Yeager or Mr. Sakata.
That was always way cool!
The year I got my first pair of skates was so exciting! Best birthday ever! They even had pink and white pom poms that were premade. Before those, I made my own poms. They were pretty neat, but not tight and bouncy like the premade ones. Just having your own skates was awesome, no waiting in line! And no smelly tootsies in your skates before you!
All those memories on Rambling Road, that at that time, was just a dirt road. By the way that skating rink was the second of three that Alliance had. The first one was above the what is now the ALLO building, and there was a Safeway below. Later Jim McDermott would open a rink on East 10th Street in the 80’s. After it closed, The Immanuel Luthern Church Would open a school in the same building.