I relived a large part of my

youth this past weekend when my friends and I went roller skating.

Growing up, I spent a good

amount of time at the Roller Palace, which was what the skating rink a

mile or so from my house was called. On the outside, it looked like every

other skating rink I'd ever seen, by which I mean very unassuming.

Without a sign of a large roller skate, the building looked like a seedy

warehouse. The inside was an entirely different matter.

Though it was very dimly lit

- the better to accentuate the colored lights and neon - my eyes would

soon adjust to the visions that surrounded the middle-school me. There

were dozens of video games along the walls, a snack bar with all sorts

of junk food treats, older, more coordinated skaters dazzling me with

their graceful maneuvers and, most importantly, girls. There were girls

everywhere. Some of the girls were out my age range and more were out

of my league, but every time I went skating, my goal was to find a girl

for the couple skates and, more often than not, I succeeded.

The keys to finding a girl

for the couple skates were like the board game Othello - easy to

learn but hard to master. First, don't rush. The skating session

typically lasted from 1-5 p.m., though people started packing up around

4 p.m. It was important to use most of the first hour to skate around

and mingle. Though I knew some of the skaters from school, there were

kids from the other middle school in town and even some people from a

few towns over. Not every city in our county had a skating rink, so there

were more girls to choose from. This gave you a chance to operate out

of your assigned middle school caste. If you were not one of the cool

kids Monday through Friday, nobody else had to know that.

The second rule was to not

fall. This was sometimes difficult because it is a part of every young

man to want to show off his skills. If you skate too fast or try a trick

that is too risky, you may fall. If you fall, chances are lots of people

saw it and, if the fall was bad enough, laughter may start. Some falls

are minor and easily overlooked, but some are just laughable. The other

risk of falling was hurting yourself to the point of tears, which was

the worst type of fall imaginable. It is also important that the friends

you arrive with don't try to knock you down while skating. Later

in life, these friends will be called your wingmen.

Now, that you are skating around

without falling, making eye contact and checking everybody out, you are

ready for the first couple skate It is important to act, because the DJs

do not play lots of couple skate songs. Whether they do this to avoid

making people feel like outcasts if they are relegated to the sides, thereby

alienating their customer base, or to keep the kids from getting too serious,

chances are limited. By now, you should know who you are going to choose,

now you must get up the nerve to ask. However, there is also a chance

that you may be asked, so it is a tenuous situation and one that must

be monitored closely. You may want to wait for the first few seconds of

the song to start, but you don't want to wait too long either.

Eventually, you get a sense

of how to do this. The rules are ingrained in your memory and, like The

Force, you just know how to play these situations. I skated with lots

of girls at the Roller Palace and each of them used to hold a special

place in my memory. Many of them are gone now, with the exception of the

first girl, Kyrie. I think it was so special, because it was my first

couple skate. There was a large feeling of coolness, as we skated laps

around the smooth floor, in even dimmer light, holding hands. Every time

I went