By JACKIE TAYLOR | February 25, 2026

Bowling for kids

Ah, another blissful weekend in the books.

But, warning, it was another one of those ‘So’ weekends.

I had a lady’s church meeting last Thursday when one of the girls mentioned she might need a knee replacement; that, after wearing a brace and gimping around the dinner meeting.

When we found out she might need surgery, the questions came about like “who is going to help you?” “Where are you going to stay?” Etc.

Then, I mentioned I was going roller skating with my granddaughter Saturday; you guessed it. I heard, “Who is going to take care of you?” “Where are you going to stay?” Etc. Actually pretty entertaining for me.

The last time I was on real skates was in western Kansas; Sharon Springs to be exact. They had beautiful asphalt roads that I could roller blade on. I kept in great shape roller blading around town every early morning. Then I moved to eastern Kansas and my skates got put away.

Saturday night was the first time in 20-plus years that my feet wore skates. My son and daughter-in-law had plans with friends and I spent the day with my granddaughter who has season tickets to the local skating rink.

We went, signed all the necessary release-of-liability forms for her and me, and donned our skates.

Well, being of sound mind and body at the time, I was slow on the uptake of the skates. Actually, I felt like I was 80 and if I fell, I’d be knocked into the Stone Age.

We hit the floor at 1 p.m. and started our rounds. The last time I saw my granddaughter skate was two years ago at her birthday party. The skating rink is pretty tricky with littles; they give them a tripod on wheels to skate with.

The tripods are made of two-inch PVC pipe and work to hold less-than-stable kids up in one to two second bursts of time. 

My granddaughter had progressed from needing a tripod to grasping the wall from time to time. I have to admit, the wall came in handy for me, as well.

So, when we entered the rink, I could see it was bowling for children. There were 10 to 15 tripod-adorned kids careening around, others who had progressed beyond the tripod and would skate a bit before hitting the floor.

Then there were others, a bit older, who felt they were the next Olympic hopefuls and either went mach-7 on the floor, or did quad-loops. They actually were safer than the dad-types who were going 50 miles-per-hour around the rink cutting in and out of kids, obviously reliving their old days at the skating rink in high school.

One such meeting of a tripod and dad skater occurred when the dad was flitting around and a tripoder did a sudden 90-degree turn to an exit. Dad had no hope of stopping and the kid definitely couldn’t stop – so smooshed kid and embarrassed dad met in the middle.

At one point, I stood on the side of the rink and watched the mayhem that was occurring inside the rink and felt I was looking more at bowling for kids than skating. It actually was pretty funny, and a lot of fun. I don’t think anyone got hurt in the skating brawl; everyone just had a lot of fun.

Honestly, I think more people need to get back into a skating rink; what a blast from the past. I remember many days my brother and I, friends, high school dates, etc. spent on the floor of a rink skating. 

The music was fun, too. My son, who used to say my music sucks, now has a playlist made up of many of the tunes I listened to – now coined ‘Dad tunes.’ Many of the tunes played took me back to a different time, fun times. I really think kids now-a-days have missed out on something if they didn’t get to hang out in a skating rink.

Hopefully, it’s not 25 years until my next venture into a rink; or, it could be a question of who is going to take care of me through rehabilitation.