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View From The Middle
It must be the kid in me, but…I WANT A PAIR! I want a pair to the point of throwing myself down on the ground in a loud, boisterous TANTRUM, topped with a breath-holding display not heard of since Houdini, if I don't get them. Sadly, though, they don't come in size 9 1/2 (You'll notice I mentioned the size, in case any of you come upon a large pair in your travels. I'm not bashful about taking gifts). It seems that the out-and-out fun of whizzing around a mall or a sidewalk on those new roller shoes would be better than just about anything! The shoes are called "Heelys," not because that little wheel on the back is attached to the heels, but because the original manufacturer's name is, uh, Heely. I first noticed them a couple of months ago while I was waiting in line in one of our local malls. There were two kids - definitely related. The boy had red hair and was about 12 years old. The girl, about 10 or so, also had red hair. They were with a man who appeared to be their father. He was walking with them on the second floor of the mall when, all of a sudden, both kids started to zoom ahead of him, gliding over the clean, smooth surface, their toes pointed upward like a young Thief of Baghdad and twirling in a pirouette while passing shoppers. Forcing myself to smother a "Wheeee!," as if I was doing the skating, I remember remembering at that time what it was like when I was a kid and had those clip-on skates; the heavy, metal ones that clipped onto your regular shoes. I thought of how I did the very same thing along a crowded sidewalk and how people would mumble, "Tsk, tsk!" as I passed, and yelled that they would tell my parents about my hazardous driving. They didn't know that, shortly after I passed them, the clip on one of the skates came loose, forcing me to smack into the ground with a force that otherwise would have broken my shoulder. But kids in those days were tougher than they are now. Somehow, shoulders didn't seem to break so easily then. Nowadays, it seems like adults are taking all the fun out of everything . They're already starting to yell about the safety of it all and how the youngsters wearing the shoes should be wearing helmets and knee pads and arm bands and face masks and bulletproof vests and….Like I said, they don't make kids nowadays like they used to. Funny, but I don't remember anybody mentioning any of that materiel in my early days of self-propellment (I think I made a new word!). I do recollect that when riding a bicycle guys had to have a round, thin, metal clip to put around their pants leg so they wouldn't get it tangled in the chain when they were pumping up a hill. Oh, yeah, there were some bikes that had metal guards for that purpose, but, hey, that just was not cool (Talk about nerds!). How come we didn't have all these regulations and safety measures when I was a kid? Oh, yeah, sure, there were a lot of guys - and girls - who sported cracked front teeth for a couple of years of elementary school, but that was later remedied by a dentist who would put caps on the teeth, usually colored approximately the same as the rest of your teeth - at a great expense to your parents. Me and my gang of guys felt the discolorment (I made another word!) was more of a badge of courage, though. Then there were the shoes...the ones upon which a person would clip the metal skates (this was before double-wheeled shoe skates were the thing. Who had enough money to buy those kinds of skates, anyway? My folks spent most of their money on caps for my teeth!). When I would come home after a hard day's skating on gravelly concrete, my mother would always complain about how the metal clips were crunching the side of my shoes and "just ruining them!" Barring the cracked-and-eventually-capped teeth, lots of scraped knees, arms and shoulders, though, we really didn't think about getting that hurt riding our conveyances. Our philosophy was: That's life. Live with it! But, like I said: they don't make kids like they used to. So I guess we have to go along with the suggestions of some doctors and nurses - and Mommy, too - and put on the precautionary armor. A recent study done in Dublin, Ireland determined that, over a ten week period, at least 67 kids had to be treated at hospitals for injuries received as a result of wearing roller shoes. Why in the world would they want to do the study in Dublin, anyway? Of course, this might have a lot to say about the kids in Dublin (Oh, I'm kidding! Lighten up!). And in the latest issue of Pediatrics, a magazine for, uh, pediatricians, a number of other cities are noted as having had children injured while wearing these outrageous contraptions on their feet. We didn't even have studies like that when I was growing up. And we lived with it. But, like I said. They don't make kids like they used to.
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