Find your own Xanadu while roller skating at Greenwood Community Center in Crozet.
Picture it: 1980s upstate New York, a roller rink awash in the purple-blue glow of blacklights, my ocean-wave of bangs—hairsprayed as though my life depended on their height—
to protect my head if I fell as we skated to hair metal, synth pop, and Madonna—oh, the Madonna! After hours of skating alone in my basement, the roller rink felt like the
place I’d always been missing. While nostalgia adds a brighter glow to that memory than the blacklights did, the reality as it was still felt pretty great. I longed to feel that sense of freedom and fun on roller skates again.—Kristie Smeltzer
What
Skating at Greenwood Community Center’s open skate night.
Why
To take my skates out somewhere nice (and out of my garage).
How it went
The only things missing were my reversible black and purple satin skating skirt and Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer.”
As I drove to the Greenwood Community Center, excited butterflies moshed in my stomach. During the worst of the COVID times, I bought myself a new set of roller skates (pink suede with multicolored glittery laces and light-up wheels) that I spun around the garage on a few times. This was to be their debut to the world!
The center offers public skate nights on Saturdays from 6 to 8pm. Arriving around 6:15, the place already looked busy from the outside. Skaters’ heads zipped by the windows lit by festive white and multicolored string lights. Inside, I joined the line to pay. It’s cash only and $3 per person if renting skates, $2 for those with their own. Rollerblades are also welcome.
After gearing up, I readied to enter the flow of skaters rolling around the 40-foot-by-80-foot room. The center’s skate nights are family-friendly, and groups with younger children made up most of those in attendance, with some teens and adults flying solo or in small packs.
My mission was simple but important: Don’t fall and injure myself—and do not trip over a skater in front of me and squish them. The latter ended up taking more energy than the former, but that turned out perfectly, because the pace enabled me to acclimate to skating with so many others.
With the music thumping and bright lights dancing on the walls, we settled into joyful circuits around the room. Just when the floor started to feel a little too busy (and when I felt confident to try going faster), a staff member began calling out different skates and, golly, did that transport me back to my youth. First it was girls-only, followed by boys-only. Then a series of different age-defined skates were called. Y’all, I opened up my flashing, light-up skates on the floor with the 14-and-older group, and I felt young again. Roller skating feels—with a little speed—like I imagine flying might.
While this roller skating experience wasn’t an exact replication of the rink visits of my childhood (I mean, that place had a carpeted wall in ’70s decor), it scratched a similar itch. The center’s wood floors were far superior to the cement in my garage, and it felt good to enjoy the activity with others. Every person I bumped into, literally or figuratively, behaved nicely and seemed to be there for fun.
In addition, I can attest—as I write this with sore muscles—that skating counted as exercise, too. The skating space is available for party rentals, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to planning my next birthday there.
