One rink resists the passing of a pastime
by BETHANY GARFIELD
photos by HOLLY LEITNER
slideshow by ALEX GRIGAS
"Iremember skating here on a Friday or Saturday night,” Frederic Roe says as he gazes over a dim and empty rink. He recalls how the lines used to go out the doors, and the skating rink would be packed. When the skating finished at ten o’clock, the night didn’t end.
“People would take off their skates, and there would be this huge enormous pile of skates, and they would go out and dance on the floor for two hours non-stop,” Roe says.
This is no longer the scene at Skate World roller rink in Springfield, Oregon. It hasn‘t been for years. Most nights, the racks of roller skates remain full, the crowd is meager, the skating sessions end at 9:00 p.m., and no one dances afterward.
“I miss it. I miss having lots of people here,” Roe says.
Above: A pair of worn skates awaits return at Skate World in Springfield, Oregon.
Frederic Roe has been roller-skating for more than thirty years and has watched many of his favorite roller rinks in Oregon close their doors over that time. He and other dedicated skaters fear that Skate World may be next. If that happens, only five rinks will remain in the state.
The demise of roller-skating is sweeping the nation, with rinks closing across the country. Roe and his son, Chris, know this reality all too well.
After Chris’ hometown rink in Dallas, Oregon, closed, he began making the trip to Skate World almost every Sunday night. The drive takes an hour and a half each way and costs him a total of $40 in gas. The money is often hard for Roe to find.
“Sometimes my friends will pitch in so I can get there,” he says. “My friend Jake and I sometimes collect cans from my house or from friends and turn them in at Safeway. I love skating. I’ll find any way that I can to get down there and skate.”
"Kids want to skateboard or do whatever is cool right now,
not what was cool twenty years ago.”
Money, or lack of it, has been a problem in the world of roller-skating for years. Skate World currently makes just enough money to pay the bills and has grown accustomed to this predicament. “Through the eighties, they kept this place open in the red,” says Angus Laird, manager of Skate World for the past twelve years. “[The owners] were taking money out of their own pockets and keeping the place open. That’s when you saw most of the mom-and-pop rinks disappear. There were four or five rinks just in this immediate area, and they just couldn’t make it.”
The world of roller-skating was much different before its initial fall in the eighties.
Skate World opened in 1976 and joined the ranks of many rinks that were home to the disco-dancing skate craze beginning in the seventies. Flashy dress, funky dance moves, and a disco ball accompanied hundreds of roller skaters jamming to Gloria Gaynor or the Bee Gees. But the skating phenomenon ended in the eighties, along with disco dancing.
Above: Frederic Roe disco dances at Skate World.
The mass production of inline skates in the eighties bolstered the sport temporarily. This trend, however, eventually reached its peak and fell, leaving the roller skating world fighting to stay alive ever since.
Some skaters, like Roe, have hung onto the fad that once swept the nation. “I never really grew out of the seventies,” Roe says. “I kind of hung in there like the Fonz, you know. I just kept coming. I never stopped. I sort of still live in that era. I want to have fun and skate!”
The reasons for roller skating’s decline are unclear. Roe believes it’s a symptom of the times. “People are playing video games or watching TV, getting fat,” says Roe. “They’re hanging around doing nothing, walking around the mall, going nowhere.”
Marlow Anderson, who has been skating for forty-five years, says, “It’s just not cool anymore. Kids want to skateboard or do whatever is cool right now, not what was cool twenty years ago.” Others, such as Laird, believe it is all part of a natural cycle. “Skating traditionally runs in cycles. It trends up, it trends down,” says Laird. “They call it a seven-year thing.”
But this “trend” has not been enough for rink owners to keep their faith. Nor has it been enough incentive for the owners of Skate World to hang on. They recently decided to sell one of the four rinks they own. Local enthusiasts wonder if Skate World is next.
