Roller Skating

The children and teenagers flocked from all directions to the corner of 78th and Central, waiting impatiently to enter the one place they felt belonged to them. Some begged their parents for just one more dime so they could be a part of the fun, while others clutched their $13 roller skates in one hand and 50 cents in another. Beyond those doors, their doors, stood the Savoy Skating Rink -- one place where violence disappeared, racism had no command and music ruled.

In response to complaints from officials of the Senior Citizens Center and the public library, the City Council tonight will consider banning skateboarding and roller skating on selected city-owned properties. In a separate action, the council will probably vote on an agreement with the Newport-Mesa Unified School District that would allow city and private recreational programs to be played at school sites.

Before you laugh, remember that it is a sport. A sport with real, hard-working athletes. The kind of athletes who would scoff at golf for not being athletic. The kind with muscle definition on their legs and the gaunt look of a six-hour workout in their cheeks. Some of these athletes could hurt you in a fight. So don't smirk when you find out that the Olympic Festival's most decorated athlete got all his medals in speedskating. Roller speedskating, that is.

Jerry Conklin is on a roll. The 66-year-old Westlake Village software consultant is a roller-skating purist, a fixture on the trail at Westlake. Four of every five days, he can be found zooming by in-line skaters and bicyclists on his clunky four-wheeled clodhoppers. "Everyone's smiling as I go by: 'Look at the old man,' " Conklin said with a fair amount of self-deprecation and a still-discernible Brooklyn accent. " 'He should be doddering with a cane.'

On the streets of this beach community, from Dana Point Harbor to La Plaza Park, the word is out. A new law banning skateboarding from some of the most popular spots is looming. Among the sport's young aficionados, the news could not be worse. "Everyone knows about it, but nobody likes it," said Shaun Vanderheiden, 11. But local business people, particularly in the shopping centers and parks where the skateboarders congregate, say the law is the only way to control them.

Critics of a ban on skateboarding and roller-skating at Calabasas Park Estates say rule makers here are cracking down on a fun and harmless pastime, but advocates call the policy a needed safety precaution. A printed reminder of the prohibition was distributed to homeowners last week, after several residents complained that youths were illegally riding through the gated community on motorized skateboards.

On Nov. 8, 1935, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was in his first term as President and "Mutiny on the Bounty" was a hit motion picture, Hazel Smith and Bill Williams fell in love on the hardwood floor of the old Hippodrome roller skating rink in Long Beach. She was 15. He was 19, an older man. Someone whose name has long since faded into obscurity introduced them, and they both knew then that it was love. He asked her to skate, and they did, holding hands for the rest of the night.

Donna Woods didn't put on her first pair of roller skates until she was 47 years old. Now, at 57, she can't take them off. Skating has become her preoccupation. "It's a disease--you love it," said Woods, a Fountain Valley resident. Woods started skating to shed pounds. And she did. About 100. She skates at Fountain Valley Skating Center, not only for exercise, but because it's fun. "It's something my husband and I can do together," said Woods, who skates competitively with husband, Ken.

In-line skating may reach its zenith this summer, according to sporting goods manufacturers, who predict sales of skates will surpass last year's record of $243 million. But will this also be the summer in which skaters are lined up in hospital emergency rooms? The national Consumer Products Safety Commission says yes. Proponents and others say no.

These days, roller-skating not only has a new look but a new name. "We don't roller-skate anymore," says one denizen of the Venice bike path, where skaters and cyclists vie for space. "We roller-blade ." He is referring, of course, to Rollerblade, the in-line skate that has revolutionized California skating. Unlike conventional skates, it aligns its wheels along a single blade, similar to an ice skate, for a faster, smoother ride.