As a kid, going to the roller skating rink was not always an option. Nevertheless, we all loved to skate. Not being able to go to the skating rink all the time didn’t bother us, nor did the uneven sidewalk in front of our house. We learned to overcome those obstacles, because we loved to skate. I suppose it was that age old desire to have wheels to take you where you wanted to go, without having to depend on your parents to get you there…or maybe it was just because it was a lot of fun. The skates I had as a kid were not the fancy ones with the shoe built onto it, because…well our shoe size was always changing. It made no sense to buy new ones every year. That was simply an unnecessary expense.

Of course, the problem with those skates that could grow, was that you needed a key to change the length and the width of the skate to fit your shoes. Since feet didn’t grow that fast, it might be a while between the times you needed to change the size, by the time you needed it again, the key was nowhere to be found. This was such a big problem, in fact, that at one point someone came up with a song about two kids…one who had the skates, and one who had the key. It made for a good partnership…or maybe it was just necessity that they become friends. Either way, having a skate key made one a valuable friend to anyone who had skates and no key.

I think if the inventor of the skates had given any thought to it, he might have figured out a different way to do the size changes, or at the very least, put in a place to store the key, so that if it was lost, it would truly be the fault of the child, and not just the fact that the key had no safe storage place to be. Of course, in all reality, the skating years were pretty short lived. All too soon, we were on to the next great toy or the next cool set of wheels…such as the skateboard. Once those came out, kids who were still using skates were considered babies…until Inline Skates came out. Then the ones who still had four wheeled skates or even skateboards were considered babies, who couldn’t balance on two wheeled skates…until trick skateboarding came along. Before long, that old pair of four wheeled skates and their corresponding key, were no longer the latest thing…and no one wanted them anyway, so the key no longer mattered.