Roller Derby, Roadside Cryptozoology, and Old School Funk Night

Sometimes, the only way to properly acknowledge that the work week has ended and the weekend has begun is to go roller skating at a rink that my grandparents might have gone roller skating at, with twenty or thirty men and women who really, really think roller skating is best when it's a full contact sport.

And so it was that I found myself at Roller Garden, a roller rink I've been meaning to go to for some time, on Old School Funk night, strapping on my blue suede skates with the men of the Twin Cities Terrors, along with a few of the North Star Rollergirls and I do believe one or two of the MN Rollergirls were in attendance as well.

The new wood floor is gorgeous, and awesome to skate on.

Have you met the derby folk? Because I would love to introduce you to some of the nicest folks you'll ever meet that can't wait to kick your ass. On wheels.

On the off chance you don't know about modern roller derby, here's the scoop: it's all real. These men and women are real athletes, really competing. They've kept a little bit of the fun and showmanship of the alligator-pit-era, but there is nothing pseudo-sport about derby.

And in the incredibly likely case that you haven't heard of Roller Garden, and the mysterious cryptid contained within, allow me to clue you in on a historic place in Middle Coast roller skating. Roller Garden was built in the 1930s and has survived, as a roller rink, since. How many roller rinks do you remember going to as a kid that are still open?  How many that your parents went to?  How many that your grandparents could have gone to? Show a little respect.  The one I went to as a kid was a furniture store in it's last incarnation - rink still intact under Lay-Z-Boys and such - until it was torn down.

Like any proper crytpid, the Roller Garden dinosaur  is impossible
to capture in anything but the blurriest photos.

Well, as you can imagine, the roller derby folk like to skate. And if there's a cool place to skate, you can bet that the derby folk know about it and have skated it. You'll recognize them if you see them because they are all far, far better skaters than you. Personally, I'm pretty happy when I make it through a skating session without falling too hard. These people... well, I'll just say they can skate and leave it at that.

By the way, October is National Roller Skating month, so go skate already.