The Roller Rink Disaster of 1984 (or maybe '85)

Skateland now (DJ Curley, video originally uploaded by brandonnoonen)

Northridge Skateland turned 50 with a nice write-up in the Daily News.

Throughout elementary school and junior high, we were always going to Skateland, as most of us lived walking or short-driving distance from the rink. It was everything you might imagine from watching '80s films. Lots of sweatbands and lots of HiNRG, new wave and other assorted pop of the era. Over the course of the decade, Human League and Soft Cell gave way to Expose and Stacey Q, which in turn paved the road for Technotronic and M/A/R/R/S. Meanwhile, we changed from little kids in sweatbands and dolphin shorts to a motley crew of young teens that took our fashion cues alternately from Downtown Julie Brown, Kelly Bundy and Lydia Deetz.

I still have a souvenir of those totally '80s birthday parties and school fundraisers that took place as the skating rink-- a big-ass scar on my knee from when I ate it back in 1984 (or was it '85). Regardless, it was my own damn fault.

My best friend in elementary school was this girl, we'll call her Tracy, who despite being fairly small and and blond was the class tomboy. She was the sort of girl that would drink Del Scorcho out of the packet. Yeah, that kind of badass. Now being the bff of the class tomboy wasn't so bad, it kind of kept me from getting picked on for being such a nerd. The tough part, though, was dealing with Tracy's natural athleticism. See, I am what my grandfather used to call a "hoplamaz," which is Armenian for clutz, and have been since the day I was born. Amongst my earliest achievements in life were crawling out (oddly enough) unscathed from under the Christmas tree I pulled to the ground and walking into a table, a feat that left me with a huge gash in my right eyebrow (now you know why I wax them so thin). That I managed to succeed in dance class was no small accomplishment, but the biggest challenge of my childhood was being best friends with a member of Future Jocks of America. I tried, really I tried to keep up with Tracy, but the results always seemed to involve yours truly and a trip to the nurse's office (and, on occasion, the doctor).

So, this one time, when we were in second grade, Tracy decided that we were going to race from the tetherball courts to the church steps. I was running fast enough to keep us neck and neck, until we hit the basketball court and I tripped over my shoelace. My left knee hit the asphalt. Tracy helped me limp to the nurse's office, my leg a mess of blood, hanging skin and hot, black stuff that burned with every movement. Mrs. A., the best school nurse in the history of the field, cleaned me up, causing a pain worse than the initial injury(Me: "Ow!" Her: "Now, Liz, if I don't put this on, it's only going to get infected and hurt more." Me: "Thhhokaythhh").

Weeks later, the wound had healed into a large, dark scab. One of the boys, the one who, at the age of eight had already proved himself to be a major asshole, told me that I had birdshit on my knee. He did use the word "birdshit" as well, said it five times a day until I got so irritated that I picked off the scab.

"Why did you do that?" my mom asked me.

"Because I was sick of [insert name here] telling me that it looked like birdshit."

"Elizabeth!"

"Well, that's what he said."

But, this story is supposed to be about Skateland, right?

So, I had this non-scab wound on my leg and school had just ended and this other girl had her birthday part at Skateland. While we were on the rink, Tracy had passed me up and I wanted to tell her something so I sped up to meet her, at which point I fell on my left knee.

There was blood everywhere. I couldn't look around me without seeing red liquid slithering across the floor. My pants were ruined. The waxed roller rink floor was probably ruined. And everyone around me was trying to avoid a) tripping over a sobbing eight year old girl and b) slipping in a puddle of the sobbing eight year old girl's blood.

I think one of the grown-ups had to come out on the floor and help me up. My knee throbbed and at that moment, I was thoroughly convinced that I would have to go through the rest of my life feeling nothing but physical pain and humiliation.

Ten minutes later, after some bandages and a few rounds of Ms. Pac-Man, I was back on the rink. And I think we got the blood stains out of the pants too. But that scar on my left knee, it's still there.