Yesteryear A Return to
E ight small wheels gliding across the pavement harmonize with the faint tune of Mr. Softy in the distance; your legs are as straight as that popsicle stick you’re eyeing. As you shift your weight from right to left, you realize it looks easier than it is. To gain some balance, your free hands become flailing propellers as you sail across the newly paved parking lot. You smile wide because you finally just learned how to … roller-skate! But have you ever wondered how roll- er-skating started? How did it become the most popular sport in America in the 1950s? The roller skate’s inventor, Belgian engi- neer John Joseph Merlin, had a rough start when he debuted his beloved prototype at a banquet in mid-1700s
London. The design featured a single medium-sized wheel for each foot, with pegs sticking out of the center of each wheel that he strapped to the bottom of his shoes and balanced on … sort of like if you chopped a dumbbell in half, replaced the two weights with wheels, and tried balancing on the small rod sticking out of each side (which we most certainly do not recommend). Unfortunately, Merlin came rushing through the ballroom faster than the bubonic plague. His lack of coordi- nation and failure to include a break- ing mechanism caused him to crash quickly, resulting in serious injuries and leaving the only remembrance of his presence at the soiree to be the mess he left behind rather than the appeal of his beloved invention.
It wasn’t until around 100 years later, in the 1860s, that American inventor James Plimpton revolutionized the idea of skating when he introduced the quad skates. This design featured two sets of wheels, one beneath the ball of the foot and one beneath the heel, allowing for greater stability. You could fasten the skate to the bottom of any shoes you chose by turning a key to tighten or widen the length. Still, Plimp- ton’s version lacked a breaking mech- anism. It wasn’t until another ten years (and presumably, many broken limbs) later that the toe stop was finally added. Now that society had the comfort of knowing they could stop before rolling into heavy rush-hour horse-and-car- riage traffic, roller skates’ popularity soared. By 1902, The Chicago Coliseum had opened a public skating rink,
44 • AMAC Magazine
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