Squeaky Wheels

MONEY WAS SCARCE when I was growing up during the 1930s and ’40s, in Chicago, and toys such as roller skates were luxuries my widowed mother could ill afford.

Fortunately, necessity made me quite resourceful. A favorite childhood activity during those years was roller-skating on the city’s smooth macadam-paved streets, and the lack of proper skates never stopped me from joining in the fun.

I had a good friend who often shared her skates with me. We made up a game that needed only one pair of skates: We each put on one skate and pushed scooter-style with the other foot until we got up to a good speed. Then, balanced on one leg, we scooted down the street. We got to be pretty good at this and decided to challenge our skills on a long, steep driveway at the end of the street. My friend went first. Balanced on one foot, she barreled down the incline right into the garage door and broke her arm. I decided not to try my luck.
Then one day, someone gave me a pair of rusty, old skates. Although the wheels turned only with the greatest effort, I was delighted. Oh, boy—two skates, and they were my very own!

I took the skates into my grandfather’s basement workshop and sanded off most of the rust. Then I got Grandpa’s oilcan and squirted what seemed like the entire contents onto every screw and nut. I cut a piece of Mother’s clothesline to fasten the skates to my ankles, then used Grandpa’s pliers to tighten the clamps onto my shoes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the wheels to turn very fast no matter how much oil I used.

Although the skates were just a shade better than walking, they were my own, and I used them proudly.
Now that I had skates, I could join the other kids in a game of “wolf.” First, we used white chalk to draw a gigantic game board, like a maze, on the macadam. Sometimes it would be half a city block long.

Playing wolf was like tag, with whomever was “it” being the wolf. The wolf chased us up and down the maze-like paths until he or she caught someone; that kid was the next wolf.

Because of my slow wheels, I had more than my share of being the wolf, as I puffed and pushed and willed those wheels to go around.

One evening the following summer, I was at the bus stop as usual, waiting for my mother to come home from work. I looked forward to walking home with her every evening and having her all to myself for a few minutes. Even before she got off the bus, I saw the box in her arm. I could tell it was a pair of new roller skates. I was so excited I almost forgot to wave to the bus driver.

As Mother stepped off the bus, she handed me the box. After kissing and hugging her, I sat down on the curb and immediately put on my shiny new skates. Wow! The ball-bearing wheels spun around with almost no effort. The ankle straps were genuine red leather, and the clamps were in the shape of streamlined wings. Oh, how I would fly now!
I skated everywhere that summer, to the grocery store and the bakery. In the fall, I skated to school. I didn’t have to worry about always being the wolf anymore. In fact, I won all the neighborhood races that year.

I gave my old skates to my brother. He promptly got a wooden apple crate from the grocer, nailed a few pieces of wood to it and made a scooter using the old skates for the wheels. As a finishing touch, he nailed two tin cans to the front of the scooter for “headlights” and went rattling down the street on this noisy vehicle.

Although the scooter was supposed to be off-limits to me, I’d sneak it out of the backyard when my brother wasn’t home and join the other kids, mostly boys, in the fleet of apple-crate scooters racing up and down the neighborhood streets.

Eventually I limited my skating to the indoor rinks, where I taught my grandchildren how to skate. I am now 75 years old and a little bit slower, but I can still enjoy a few spins around the rink.

— By Dorothy Leyendecker Lady Lake, Florida