Fun in a small town

Roller skating was so much fun. My sisters and I would skate all over town and a few times April and I roller skated all the way down Flat Creek road to our friend Diane Whites house. 

My sister Claudia was quite brave on her roller skates. One day she told me how much fun it was to grab hold of the back of the garbage truck as it came down the stop light hill. Well, she was right; every once in a while we could both be seen rolling down the hill holding on to the back of the garbage truck. (Please do not try this).

In the summertime, when it got dark, we would go up town and skate down Sharpsburg’s main street. We would skate for a while then go down to Burton’s Country Boy’s Grocery and buy us a fresh peach and sit on the side walk in front of Richmond’s pool room and eat our peaches.

Skating under the stoplight made us feel like we were stars in a skating show.

When the light would change it would cast pretty colors of faded green, red and yellow on the highway.

Sometimes my best friend Missy Pettit and I would start at the top of the stoplight hill and skate all the way down the road to the entrance of the Sharpsburg School house.

One time we only made it half way down the hill before crashing into the ditch. That was not so fun. But no matter how many times we fell and busted our butts, we loved lacing up our skates every day.

Sometimes we would get to go the Salt Lick skating rink where we got to skate to music. But the best fun was spent skating on the streets.

When it turned cold and the ground was covered with snow we would spend hour’s sleigh riding. Sometimes the whole community would get together and build a bon-fire to keep us warm.

I remember the Martin’s, Doug, Mike, and their parents, Dorothy and Raymond, Daphne, Larry and Donna Fair, Jeff and Greg Martin, Mike and Danny Warner and a most of us Hawkins’  sledding down the alley behind our house.

Most of us had a sled but we also used old car hoods.  We would take the car hoods over to the Hart farm where there was a big hill to slide down. The car hoods would go down a hill super fast. Please don’t try this either, car hoods have sharp edges that could be very dangerous.

During the long days of no school we would spend nearly the entire day out side playing in the snow. April and I loved to make snow angels, and William always made him some kind of snow skies out of old curtain rods and would ski down the hill behind the Marathon station.

We would have snowball fights and build snow houses and just plain old had a lot of fun back in those days.

It would be fun to go sleigh riding again and join the whole community in keeping warm by a bon-fire, and it would really be fun to put on a pair of roller skates and skate to my hearts content then sit on the side walk and eat a fresh peach.