Wind in my hair!

It was 1985. I had just wrapped up a sale of high tech data com switching equipment to American Airlines' Engineering Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It had taken a year of constant work and I had just put a bow on the deal -- $2.5 million of intelligent switches and 'lightning fast' 2400 bps synchronous modems. I had just earned a $60,000 commission. That was a lot of money back then (still is, I guess) and I was basking in a case of the 'terminal grins'! Driving back to my motel room, on the north side of Tulsa, I passed a roller rink. I don't know why I stopped. Impulse, I guess. It was late afternoon and the place was pretty much empty. I had always wanted a pair of street skates but had never felt like I could blow $150 bucks for something so frivolous, esp. since I had a wife and two little kids at home. At the moment, however, I was living large, due to the culmination of a great sale, and was about to burst with excitement. I spotted a pair of black 'speed skates' with lime green wheels and lime green laces. I had to have them, so I walked out with them, and headed straight to my motel room, where I strapped those babies on and went out for a test ride, on the service road of I-244 during the evening rush hour. I was at the top of a hill, headed in an easterly direction, dressed in a pair of black gym shorts and an over sized swim suit cover that my wife had made for me. After heading briefly uphill, I decided to turn around and head downhill and put my new 'ride' through the paces. Very quickly I picked up a lot of speed. I had hair then and the wind was blowing my hair back and I felt so free! I was flying downhill. My reverie was quickly interrupted, however, when I looked a little further downhill and saw pretty heavy traffic heading north and southbound at the end of my little section of service road. I wasn't worried --- yet---but lifted one skate and dropped the toe onto the pavement, to slow down. Nothing happened. I was flying downhill and going so fast that the brake was ineffective. I panicked. I couldn't do anything to slow down and I was plummeting into an imagined T-bone with a 40 mph 2-ton automobile at the light! I looked around and all I saw was my imminent death and destruction--- teeth, hair, eyeballs and my black and lime green skates, all over the street!

Suddenly I spotted -- right before the intersection (and certain death!), a pile of gravel on the right side of the street -- in a little triangular area between two lanes --where traffic could continue across the north/south street, or turn right and head south. You've seen those little piles of gravel, full of pieces of glass, bottle caps, bits of this and that. I did the only thing I could do ---I steered straight into the gravel.

The skates stopped immediately....I, however, continued forward at great speed, doing a head over heels maneuver worthy of a Bruce Lee movie. I was airborne for awhile, it seems, before landing -- then sliding on my backside through a lot of gravel and then across a good bit of pavement. Flat on my back, with the wind knocked right out of me, I couldn't move -- or breathe-- for what seemed like a long time. I thought: 'I'm dead...and I've ruined my new skates.' I thought of Paula, Gena and Jeff and just knew that I'd never see them again. Then I noticed, as I lay flat on my back, out in the street, that I was looking up at a telephone pole and wires. I thought: 'They don't have telephone poles in heaven...or hell, for that matter (o.k., maybe they do have them in hell -- who knows?). Maybe I'm not really dead...yet. Then, in the middle of my 'countdown to eternity', I was a little annoyed, and maybe a little embarrassed to hear laughter. I turned my head over to the right and a guy in a car was passing me on the right, and it looked like he was going to stroke out from laughing at me. He was not my Good Samaritan -- he laughed--and drove on. Very, very slowly, I picked my self up from the street, and by now, traffic had slowed down considerably --both on the service road and the north/south street directly in front of me. No one stopped to help, but there WAS a considerable amount of laughter.

I took off the skates and walked the block or so back to my motel room and soaked for a long time in a tub of hot water, to try to ease my aches and pains. I had torn a good bit of flesh off of my arms, wrists and 'tokus', but my pride took even longer to heal. I was so thankful that I didn't know any of the passersby who had such a great time at my expense!

This evening, Paula reminded me that those black skates with the lime green wheels and the lime green laces are still up in the attic. I'm thinking of retrieving them and maybe going out for a spin around the block....maybe.