Roll-a-Rink

My next wedding is going to be at the Roll-A-Rink.

Well, at least that’s what my five year old granddaughter is insisting on.

She went to a birthday party this week at the skating rink and had so much fun that she now thinks it is the perfect spot for any special occasion.

She and I were in the car, on our way to see a movie together when she suddenly blurted out her decision.

“You and Hippie are going to have your next wedding at the Roll-a-Rink.”

I laughed and told her that Hippie and I were already married and had been for 36 years.

“I know,” she said. “But that’s where you’re going to have it the next time.”

I guess she thinks that marriages expire and have to be renewed every now and then, like passports. And when our’s comes up for renewal the next time, she expected us to have it at the Roll-a-Rink.

I told her that we had been married the ‘first time’ in a church. Shouldn’t we have our ‘renewal’ there, too?

“Nope. The skating rink is a lot better. They have scooters and cake.”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that.

Our first wedding did have a cake but we most certainly did not have scooters.

I don’t remember a whole lot from that day all those many years ago. I was so nervous, I remember that. And I do remember how beautiful my wife looked coming down the aisle towards me.

She wasn’t on skates or riding a scooter. But it would have been cool if she was.

I was beginning to see what my granddaughter meant. The skating rink would have been a lot more fun than that stuffy old church.

“And they have a bouncy house, too.”

“What?”

“A bouncy house. Everybody could skate and jump in the bouncy house. It would be fun.”

I tried to imagine my elderly mother-in-law inside a bouncy house at our wedding. Other wedding guests would be banging up against her, swinging their arms around, messing up her hair, laughing.

And they’d have cake.

I don’t know if I ever saw my mother-in-law smile the entire time I knew her. Maybe this would have been what it would have taken to bring her out of her shell.

Or get us written out of the will.

After a moment, I told my granddaughter that it all sounded fun, but people just didn’t get married at the Roll-a-Rink.

She looked at me for a second and scrunched up her brow.

“Why not?”

“Well …”

I tried to come up with an answer that didn’t make me sound like a Baptist Sunday School teacher.

“Ah.. because..”

“It’d be fun,” she said.

“I’m sure it would be but..”

I stammered some more and was about to tell her how weddings were supposed to be dignified and solemn… and certainly not on wheels.

But before I could get the words out, she stopped me.

“Oh, I know,” she said. “Old people aren’t allowed to have fun.”

And with that statement, she turned to look out the window and drink her juice. The conversation was over.

I drove on and thought about those days long ago when I went to the Roll-a-Rink on the weekends. I was pretty good on skates and loved strapping on a pair and just flying round and round in circles for hours, laughing and singing along with the music.

That was what fun used to feel like.

It was effortless. Carefree. Light as air.

These days, fun is manufactured. Prepared and executed with military precision.

“I’m spending $1,000 on these Disney tickets so you kids better have fun, dammit!”

And then we stand back and take photos with our phone.

The older we get, the less and less we participate in the fun. We just watch other people have it.

“Ah, we’re too old for that,” we say and stay home and watch tv while everyone else goes out and has the fun.

And the less fun we have, the older and stiffer we become. We’re dead and just waiting for somebody to show up with a shovel to dig our grave.

It’s not old age that kills us. It’s a lack of fun in our lives.

“You know what?” I said.

My granddaughter turned away from the window and looked at me.

“What?”

“The next time me and Hippie get married, we’re going to do it at the skating rink.”

She laughed and clapped her hands but then suddenly got quiet.

“I wonder if they have skates big enough to fit you, Pippy. You are kinda’ fat.”

She giggled. I giggled.

And I imagined being out on that skating rink again, whizzing around in circles, the air blowing through (what’s left of) my long flowing hair, singing to the music… and coming up on her riding her scooter.

And ever so gently, pushing her down.

Mean? Yeah. Fun? Oh, yeah.