WEBVTT - Roller Skating: Fun and Cool 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.120 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.320 and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:19.720 the podcast Stuff you should Know. That's right before we 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.759 get going, we want to pretty quickly going a little 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:25.959 fundraising drive that we're helping out. Our friends from co 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.479 ED are our friends that took us to Guatemala so 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.280 many years ago who helped break the cycle of poverty 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:35.920 through education. They're a great organization, they do great work 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.279 and we learned that the stuff you should Know Army 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:43.080 since we went to Guatemala has raised just shy of 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:45.440 one million dollars and we really want to hit that 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.640 one million dollar mark. Yep. We're basically trying to drum 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.080 up a hundred thousand dollars in donations, which is a 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.160 lot unless you break it up and divide it among 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.600 this stuff you should know Army. So if you want 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.400 to go chip in a dollar five dollars and knowledge 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.319 whatever your heart desires, you can go to Cooperative for 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.800 Education dot org slash s y s K and they 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.400 will put your money to really good use. And uh 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:15.600 we are chipping into so okay, so let's start talking, 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:18.840 chuck about roller skating, because there's worse things that you 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.240 could talk about. Yeah, maybe let's start out with our 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:27.840 own personal experience. UM. As a sort of semi sheltered 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.720 Baptist boy, my parents did not drop me off at 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.760 the roller rink on a Friday night to go roller 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:37.840 skating like all the other kids were doing, because it 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:42.360 was unsupervised boys and girls together and that's where dirty 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:46.720 things and naughty things happened sometimes. So the only time 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:48.680 I got to go roller skating was when I went 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.600 on youth group outings to the roller rink, which we 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.280 did some long and short of it is, I was 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.840 never a great roller skater. I don't remember if I 0:01:59.920 --> 0:02:02.000 was a good roller skater and not. I certainly was 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:05.280 never like a good roller skater. But I didn't fall 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:07.040 that much, and I certainly didn't have to like hold 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.720 onto the wall. Did you go? Did your parents drop 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:11.359 you off and you got to go like try and 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.560 kiss girls and stuff? Yes, and your parents weren't too 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.480 far off. The first condom I ever saw in person 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:20.120 was at the rollers probably totally right to keep me 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.760 out of there in some dude's wallet. Um, Yes, but 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.440 it was it was much more. That was like literally 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:29.520 the worst thing I ever saw at the roller ring. 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:36.360 I can understand where that left a ring in a wallet? Right, Um, 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.520 but no, it was like a like a Friday night 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.960 thing usually. Um it was a school sponsored thing, so 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:47.000 you know, like everybody there, which was pretty cool. Um. 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:52.639 The slow skate like Arrowsmith Angel was always amazing. Um. Yeah, 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:54.760 it was a really fun experience. I went to Ohio 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:57.880 skate was the name of my roller rink. The one 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.120 we went to was called stones Gate because it was 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:05.200 near Stone Mountain. Yeah that makes sense. But again I 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:07.880 didn't get to go enough. I was okay, it wasn't 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.200 so much where when I went, people are like, you know, 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:16.120 who's the Mennonite over there? He still it looks really nervous. 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:18.519 But you know, I did okay, but I wanted to 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:20.320 go dry and kiss girls and I wasn't allowed to. 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.280 I don't recall kissing a girl at the roller rink ever, 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.040 So you know you kissed the girl eventually, right, You're 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.040 you're fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm married. You didn't miss 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.720 that much. But it was fun. It was a fun time. 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.359 I I all of my memories from the roller rink 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:36.680 are very fond ones. I wanted to kiss a girl 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:41.560 in the seventh grade, and I just that did not happen. Okay, yeah, 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.280 I think I had my first kiss in second grade. 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.960 Of course you did, because your boss there and your 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:52.800 boss now, thanks a lot man. All right, so let's 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.160 talk roller skates. They have actually been around a lot 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:57.880 longer than I thought. You put this together, right, Dave 0:03:57.880 --> 0:03:59.800 helped us with this one. Oh all right, I didn't 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:01.680 know that I forgot about this one, I guess. Yeah, 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:03.720 but they've been around a lot longer. They've been around 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:08.200 since the seventeen hundreds. I did not know that the 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:10.880 Dutch are Dutch friends were the ones who first started 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:15.480 thinking of ways to put wooden spools into a line 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:19.960 and rolling around on them. But it's our English friends 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:23.600 that get credit for being the first to have documented 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.479 use of roller skates. There was a production in London 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.240 on stage in seventeen forty three, not sure what it 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.360 was called, but they were supposed to be pretending to 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:36.799 be ice skating, So the actors on stage used roller skates. 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.680 And if that doesn't bring up thoughts of like delighted 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.520 gasps that the audience is the curtain rises and there's 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:46.560 people magically ice skating on stage. I don't know what 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.679 does Yeah, absolutely uh. Not too long after, in seventeen sixty, 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.560 there was an inventor from Belgium named John Joseph Merlin 0:04:55.600 --> 0:05:00.719 who debuted these roller skates that he made at Masquerade Ball. 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.880 When he rolled in playing the violin, was like, hey, everybody, 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:08.080 look at me, I'm playing the violin. I'm rolling. Oh no, 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.120 a mirror and like just sort of sounds like skated 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.000 right into this mirror and broke it and broke his 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:18.120 violin because at the time there were no toad stops 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.440 and there were no trucks on the bottom of your skate, 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:23.760 which we'll get to, but that's what allows you to 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.160 to kind of lean and steer a skate a little 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.520 bit right. For some reason, I think of Merlin like 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.080 as he as he gets more and more out of control, 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:36.839 his his violins playing speeds up too. Rather than the 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:41.360 opposite natural things just stopped playing violin, he keeps he's 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.280 playing like his own demise that I keep imagining it 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.000 like that. Oh, I love it. I wonder why the 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.560 guy just didn't see it coming and like decided to 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.640 just fall on purpose rather than crash into a mirror. 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:53.839 I'm not sure. Maybe it's because he was so you know, 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.240 playing so fast. He was doing the Devil went down 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.720 to Georgia. So there's a guy named Jay mzel Plimpton 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.960 and he's considered um pretty much all around. Is the 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.599 first inventor of the real roller skate back in eighteen 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.240 sixty three. And in super nineteenth century fashion, he wasn't 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.800 an inventor. He was a furniture store owner in New 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:17.279 York because that's who invented stuff back in the nineteenth century. Yeah, 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:21.599 it's pretty cool. They were called the rocking skates, and 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.360 they were the first quad skates. They were the first 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.200 ones that have you know, the two wheels in the 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:28.320 front and the two wheels in the back next to 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.360 each other. And I mentioned those trucks, the first one 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:33.560 that had a truck, and that is, instead of the 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.560 skate just being fixed in position on the bottom of 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:43.239 a wood shoe in in Amsterdam, the wheels are secured 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.279 to a truck and the truck is secured to the 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.200 shoe or the boot, and those trucks. You know, if 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.560 you ever skateboarded, you know you loosen and tighten the trucks. 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:54.320 You can do the same thing on skates, and it's 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:58.800 not quite like a skateboard. Like the trucks give just 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:00.880 just a little bit on a roll or skate such 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.640 that like most of your turning and stuff is done 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.240 by picking up your feet. Uh, and not just like 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.719 leaning really hard to the left and doing a circle. 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.280 But they but they really helped. Yeah. Um. So not 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.679 only did Plimpton invent the modern rolling skate, he also 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:21.160 basically introduced the pastime of roller skating to the world. Um, 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.120 He's like, I'm definitely onto something here. He rented a 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:26.720 ballroom in a hotel in Providence, couldn't find out what 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.520 hotel it was, um, and set up a roller rink. 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:31.800 There is basically a proof of concept. And then he 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.120 started touring the country and I think the world, showing 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:40.000 people how great skating was, giving demonstrations, giving lessons, throwing 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:44.000 skate parties, I guess, and um, in a very short time, 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.880 the Victorians were like, this is a really great thing 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:51.040 that we're into. He invented the skate in eighteen sixty three. 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.080 By the eighties, there were three thousand roller rinks in 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.880 the United States, England, Europe in Australia. Yeah. I was 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.160 about to say this would make a movie, but now 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:02.640 that I think about it, it it would make a great 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:07.200 drunk History episode, especially the John Joseph Merlin park. Yes, 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.640 and so just why haven't we been on yet? Derek Waters, 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.440 get Josh and I on junk History and let us 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.560 tell the story of roller skating. I think that we 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:18.360 need to get in the way back machine and ask 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.360 him because that do not on anymore. I thought it 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:25.400 was still going. No, we missed our chance. I'm totally 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.200 down to get in the way back machinery. I know, 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:29.240 but I don't know. I'm really sad now I didn't 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:35.240 know that it has completed. It's run. Okay, Well, never mind, 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:36.880 Derek Waters. Put us in the next thing you do. 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:39.679 Why don't you guys have me on? I'll have you one. 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:44.640 I'll Derek Waters on anytime. Uh, roller ranks became all 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.600 the rage and young Victorians were out there. There's time 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:49.280 before you could like go on a date and stuff 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.040 like that, so it was kind of like young Chuck. 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.960 It would have been a time for me to talk 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.040 to girls and stuff, and that's what it was back then, 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:01.560 in the eighties and nineties. Yeah, but I guess unlike 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.079 your parents, the Victorians were like, this is okay, We're 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:09.280 gonna let them hang out by themselves chaperone. But the 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:13.559 thing is, if you went skating back in the nineteenth century, UM, 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.480 they would have like a full orchestra or an organist 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.920 playing um, like a carousel basically, I think is what 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.520 it was a lot like um because if you're just 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:27.280 skating around silently in like with like no music, that 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.000 seems really unwholesome and weird. So I think they figured 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.360 out really quickly that you kind of need music to skate. Uh. 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:36.199 This is a pretty cool fact that was in though. 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:40.199 Was at the Grand Hall Olympia in London, a sixty 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.520 eight thousand square foot roller rink was built, which is 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:45.960 about the size of a soccer field, So that just 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.480 kind of goes to show like how much people were 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.600 into skating it. It worked his way into vaudeville. It 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.520 worked this way into the pictures. In the nineteen thirties, 0:09:55.600 --> 0:10:00.520 Charlie Chaplin, very famously in modern times, skated blindfolded. Just 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.000 if you've never watched any Chaplain, go just check this 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.960 out at least and get a slight appreciation of his genius. 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:08.680 But there was a he was on the fourth floor 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.040 and there was no railing because it was under construction, 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.680 and so he's skating around blindfold and of course they 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:19.520 is so scary. Yeah. Um, and also that Vaudeville act. 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.240 I just have to shout out Charles Professor Frank, the 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.679 dean of roller skating, and in particular I want to 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.040 shout out his five year old daughter, Lily, who could 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.360 roller skate on stilts. I've never heard of anybody doing 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.559 that before or since. I feel like I've seen that 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.839 at a circus. Okay, well, you can thank Lily Frank 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.400 for for innovating that one. I wonder if she invented 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:45.079 the stilt. Probably not so in the fifties. Um, the 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:50.559 peak of popularity of roller skating happened starting around ninety seven, 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:53.520 I believe the late fifties, and apparently Chicago was the 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.559 epicenter of this roller skating revival, because in between the 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.920 Victorians and the fifties, roller skating actually developed a really 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:06.800 seedy reputation. UM. I saw like an article from the 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.560 seventies where a roller rink operator said that back then 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:13.080 roller rink was the kind of place you wouldn't let 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.280 your daughter go hang out, like they're just not good places. 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:18.680 But all of the roller rink operators that had hung 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.640 on kind of banded together and like really worked to 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:26.120 revive roller skating's image. And we're successful, so successful that 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.600 the late fifties saw the greatest number of roller skating 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.760 and roller rinks and in history. Yeah, my parents didn't 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:34.760 get that memo. I guess they were still working off 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:39.040 the h code. But yeah, more than five thousand ranks 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.600 were operating in the nineteen fifties. And if you think 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:44.599 you grew up in the like seventies and eighties and 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:46.840 you're like, no, that was the heyday there only well 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:48.720 only there were a lot back then too, but about 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:53.800 thirty hundred fewer ranks than the nineteen fifties. Yeah, and 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:56.640 I definitely think of the late seventies is like the pinnacle. 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:01.240 But that was wrong. My eyes are open now, Uh, 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.600 shall we take a break. Yeah, let's take a break 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:32.000 and come back because there's some really unexpected coolness coming up. Okay, Chuck. 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:36.280 So I don't typically, or I didn't before, associate roller 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:40.800 skating with civil rights, but they really went hand in hand. 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.280 Um early on. I think one of the earliest sit 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:48.640 ins was in nine outside of the White City roller 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:52.679 Skating Rink in Chicago. This early, like I equate sit 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:56.319 ins with like maybe the fifties, definitely the sixties. Um. 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.959 But one of the reasons why they targeted roller skating 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:02.439 rinks for sittings and civil rights protests because some historians 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.679 said that everywhere in the country segregation, whether like on 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:12.000 paper or in practice, was a real problem. But in particular, 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:17.160 Black Americans found that, um, public pools, amusement parks, and 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.400 roller skating rinks where the three hardest places to integrate. 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.680 And um, everybody likes skating, but not everybody had access 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.440 to it, And so Black Americans were like, no, that 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:29.880 doesn't sit very well with us. We're going to do 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.480 something about that. Yeah, Like, they may show up at 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.160 a roller skating rink and even if it was not, 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.559 you know, legal to do so, they would say that 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:39.679 we have a private party tonight, you can't come in. 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:42.720 So stuff like that was going on. Uh. In the 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:45.440 nineteen sixty three there was a man seven year old 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:50.160 from Chicago named Ledger Smith who very famously roller skated 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.520 almost seven hundred miles to attend the March on Washington 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.040 for jobs and freedom, which is the very famous I 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.280 have a Dream speech where that took place, and he 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.160 was called roller Man. He had a sash that said freedom. 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:04.679 He was backed by the N double A C P. 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.320 And roller skated six and eighty five miles to attend 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.360 it and to a lot of uh, you know, media 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.959 fan fair and like obviously it was um for the time. 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.680 It wasn't like widespread media, but it got attention right 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:22.040 for sure. UM. So, after the Civil Rights Act was 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.600 passed the nineteen sixty four and there was again on 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:29.320 paper no such thing as um segregation or racism in America, UM, 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.200 black Americans going to roller rinks still were faced with, like, 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.000 you know, just being shut out. But to kind of 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:41.680 follow the law in the least way possible, roller rink 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.560 operators would set aside like one night a week for 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.320 black patrons, um. And they would call them things like 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.640 Soul Nights or Martin Luther King Junior Night. And it 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.040 was what black Americans had to work with in the 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.200 sixties if they wanted to go roller skating in some places, 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:00.920 that's right, but it was it end up being something 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:05.040 that really changed roller skating because on Soul Nights or 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.600 on Martin Luther King Jr. Night at the roller Rink 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:14.000 is where things got super cool and where they said, hey, um, 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:16.720 you know, white people aren't here. We can do what 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.080 we want. We can get our dance on on these 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.440 roller skates, and we can get that organist out of 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.480 the room and play some good music. And that's what 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:29.160 they did. They got uh, you know, like fifties and 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.280 sixties soul and R and B and then eventually like 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.200 funk music playing on the turntable and all of a sudden, 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:41.880 skating got one thousand percent more awesome. Yeah, because up 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.640 to that point, everybody was like, no, you don't do that. 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.920 You you skate around in a circle with a smile 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:52.000 on your face, than the than the little like baseball 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:56.200 game organist. But right exactly. But every but everything that 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:58.160 you think of with roller skating, if you think it's 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:02.320 even passingly cool, you can thank mid century black Americans 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:04.640 for basically saying like, there's a much better way to 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.800 do this, and integrating dancing and roller skating was a 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.800 big part of that. And um so that really laid 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.560 the groundwork for that skating revival that you and I 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.280 talked about. That seems like to us like the peak 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.880 of roller skating, even though it wasn't. Um. And there 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.080 was one guy in particular that was kind of the 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.160 conduit for the whole thing. His name was Bill Butler, 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:27.600 and he was an Air Force sergeant and all the 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.160 way back in the late fifties he was trying to 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.200 convince rink owners. He traveled around a lot um as 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:35.720 part of his Air Force service. UM, so he would 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.760 go to different rinks by himself, I guess, and um 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:40.600 he would try to convince the owners to like play 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.000 some records instead of this organist you know. Um. And 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:45.880 every once in a while he was successful. And when 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:48.120 he was he really showed people like how great it was. 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:50.720 But Um, as much as he was laying the groundwork 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:54.360 in the fifties, in the late seventies he was basically 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:59.200 the place where disco shot through into roller skating. He 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.400 was like the prism that disco came through and spread 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.960 into roller disco. Yeah. And that was in New York, 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:10.560 of course, sort of the the apex of disco. Uh 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.680 in Brooklyn actually at Empire Roller Disco is where Bill 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:17.200 hung out and disco happening. It all, like you said, 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.240 to sort of coalesced at this moment in time where 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:24.280 skating was sort of retaking off, and then all of 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.440 a sudden you had this great music to dance too, 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.760 and dancing on roller skates is even cooler. Uh if 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.080 you could pull it off. Um, it's very hard. I've 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.560 tried to do that stuff. I'm that's not very good 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.120 disco roller skater, but rollers they kind of like dip 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:41.600 their toe in it. As far as the rinks go. 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.320 They would have like a club night where they would 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.080 play those records and stuff. And then eventually, when disco 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.800 really really hit, the riding was on the wall and 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:54.680 they started fully converting roller rinks into what we think 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.600 of roller rinks now. Like before this, they didn't have 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.359 like all the amazing sort of dance lie It's and 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.400 mirror balls and like disco is is what brought all 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.359 that stuff in. So all of a sudden you have 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.879 like neon and like cool carpet and like a killer 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:14.760 sound system and it was like a disco on wheels exactly. 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:16.800 And one of the reasons why it got so big 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:21.199 is because disco really brought um, Americans of all races 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:25.399 together for like the first time, more than ever before. 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:27.679 I don't want to say the first time, but definitely 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.199 more than ever before. It was a really integrative I 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.160 think that's a word, sure, um kind of cultural movement, 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.639 right so um. Basically, another way to put it is 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.199 white people who already like disco, we're like, oh, you 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.720 guys are roller skating to disco would show up at 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.040 the roller rinks and learn from the Black Americans who'd 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:49.160 been dancing all this time and we're now like had 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.040 basically laid the foundation for roller disco to show them 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:54.440 that there's more to roller skating than just going around 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.040 in a circle with a smile on your face. That's right, 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.639 and Bill Butler leading the way in Brooklyn, like anyone 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:04.199 who is anyone in the disco scene would like they 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:06.480 would go to Studio fifty four or one night and 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.040 then they would go to Empire roller Disco. If you 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.040 weren't Share or Linda Ronstat or you know, god knows 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:16.160 who else, so you could skate with Bill Butler and 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.199 it was like a genuine movement was happening. There was 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.359 very little barrier to entry, you know, um, because you 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:24.520 rent the skates generally, like of course a lot of 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:26.360 people bought there, like super cool skates. If they could 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:28.720 afford them, but you know, a couple of bucks to 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:32.720 get in, like seventy cents to rent skates and all 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:34.960 of you know, there weren't like the velvet rope wasn't 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.520 happening like at disco clubs where they wouldn't let you 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:39.359 in if you didn't have the right look. And it 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:42.280 was sort of democratized in a way. Yeah, it was 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:46.080 really inclusive, which is cool. Um. There was one other 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:49.080 thing that happened in the seventies too that that changed 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.440 roller skating forever and basically made it what we think 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.040 of today, and that was the introduction of the polyurethane wheel, 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.840 and that um did a couple of things. One, you 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:04.119 could go outside now um to roller skate. Obviously you 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:08.199 could before because Ledger Smith roller skated seven miles. But 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:10.600 one thing you don't realize is that Ledger Smith probably 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:14.280 did that on metal wheels. And a description of roller 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:16.520 skating outside of metal wheels I saw was that the 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.400 whole point is to just keep your teeth from rattling 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:23.199 out of your head. So Paul euthane wheels are softer 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.280 and they're much more forgiving outdoors. So people were now 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.560 allowed to go outdoors and roller skate and particularly roller 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:33.840 disco outside and then indoors. It allowed for much greater 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:37.960 control and movement in precise movement uh in the roller 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.159 rink than the older wheels had as well. Yeah, I 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:43.800 mean we talked about this in the skateboarding up. The 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.920 same thing happened there. They were already being made for skateboards, 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.119 but there was a little bit of a dip in 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:52.919 popularity for skateboarding at one point in the seventies, and 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:55.080 then the wheel manufacturer said, hey, let's put them on 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.239 roller skates. Everything changed all of a sudden. You can 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:00.720 go to Central Park in New York and see some 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.960 really super cool roller disco happening on the sidewalks and 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:09.880 uh and pathways. It's essentially the definition of seventies groovy, 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:12.639 you know. Oh yeah, like all of a sudden, like 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:15.600 any like, it felt like every other movie or TV 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:17.920 show you saw I had some sort of roller skating 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:22.040 either scene or like part of the plot. Yeah, Like Skatetown, 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:24.760 USA was a big one. Um. Patrick Swayzy was in 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:28.399 that roller Boogie. There's another one starring Linda Blair, Zanna 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:32.960 Do great movie starring Olivia Newton, John Um and then 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:35.320 like you said, like even randomly to like, if you 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.359 watch The Warriors, the leaders of one of the rival 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.000 gangs like gets around on roller skates, like it was 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:44.880 just part of the part of the zeitgeist. Basically, Yeah, 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:48.600 not a tough look for a gang leader, no, but 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:51.000 that's any the great things of the Warriors. He looks 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:53.840 like a troglodyte though, so he is really scary, but 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:58.399 he's also on roller skates. It's a weird juxtaposition. Before, 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:02.000 while I was a checking out Dave's original uh PEC 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:05.639 put together for us, I stopped there before turning the 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:08.040 page and was thinking, wait a minute, I remember a 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:12.879 Chips episode very distinctly where they were bank robbers that 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:15.920 had those big platform wooden shoes and would like click 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.880 a button and wheels would come out and they would 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:21.600 rollers that was their getaway car, was their roller skates. 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:24.520