Every time I travel, I pack my seven pound second-hand roller skates. I bought them three years ago at the now-closed Skateland Vermont, a rink inside of a large warehouse that was always too hot and stunk of hot dogs and feet. I sat in the DJ booth and tried on three graying pairs of skates with the help of the rink attendant until I found the right pair, formerly his daughter’s. I spent the following evening skating across the floor of the linoleum kitchen in my shared tiny two-bedroom apartment. I could fly.
My skates are not what you’d call a convenient carry-on. They’re not the most stylish, either—the laces frayed, the boots going gray. But let me tell you something: These babies have lived. My skates came with me on an ill-fated college spring break trip to Cuba, rolled along Bernie Sanders’s prized Burlington waterfront, boogied at the Brooklyn Skate Club, and soared through the Arashiyama bamboo grove in Kyoto. And before all that, they had another full life with someone else.
I don’t know much about the person who wore these skates before me, but I can imagine that when she did, skating was more of a thing. Maybe you even remember. Just like bowling alleys and Blockbuster, roller rinks were pillars of the weekend in the '90s. (Recall the popularity of a skate rink birthday party: “It’s the big 1-0 for Jeremy today, let’s play some Cameo!”) They were an institution in the '70s and a community center for generations of black families in Brooklyn and Detroit. Disco music, hip-hop, and rap all grew out of skate culture—the rink was a place for artists to release first records and eventually, a place to meet promoters. Back then,...