Saw a piece in the local paper the other day about Fort Wayne Roller Derby, and how it's opening a training camp for anyone ages 9 and up who want to learn how to ... well, how to do roller derby. And for once I thanked the good Lord for every one of my 71 years.
Were I not in an advanced state of decrepitude, see, I might have had a chance to seriously booger myself up.
That's because I grew up watching the Northwest Pioneers and San Francisco Bay Area Bombers on the tube every Saturday afternoon -- it was always the Pioneers vs. the Bombers, it seemed -- and, man, it was more fun than the Big One at Talladega. Blockers pounding on other blockers, a bar fight on wheels. Jammers trying to slither through the chaos. And who could forget Big Joanie Weston, the Blonde Bomber, or Charlie O'Connell, the ageless wonder?
You think Earnhardt punting Labonte into the wall was wild? You shoulda seen Big Joanie send some unfortunate Pioneer flying over the rail. Or Charlie O deck an enemy blocker with a Ginsu elbow.
(And that's not even mentioning Raquel Welch in that roller derby movie. I saw that, too, growing up. Though not necessarily for the roller derby part.)
Well, now you can learn all that, thanks to Fort Wayne Roller Derby. The ulterior motive is to put a roster together for this season; the immediate goal is to introduce young and less-young boys, girls, men and women the sport.
"At the training camp, we're going to teach skating, teach how to fall, eventually how to hit people, which is the draw," board president and community events coordinator Nicki Gunn told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. "Then you learn the rules, how to be a team player, how to work both offense and defense at the same time, communicate with other and everything that encompasses.
"We start with basic skills and footwork, and each week builds on the previous week and then moves on to something new within that."
Know what jumped out at me about that?
The part about teaching how to fall.
Because I'm telling you right now, falling would be my thing. I would be a falling All-Star. I would fall if you looked at me wrong. No one would ever hit me because I already would have fallen.
So, you know, take that, Charlie O'Connell. Nyah nyah, nyah-nyah nyah.
Although I'd never taunt Big Joanie Weston like that. What, you think I'm nuts?
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