Note from Judy: Welcome back Lainie! The images that come to mind of someone joining Facebook "under duress" are pretty funny. Next thing we know, you'll be writing Facebook applications. The graphic below is from the London Friday Night Skate. As Lainie mentions, San Francisco skaters started it all.
With head hung low, I return to Judy's Turn to compose a blog. Not being a "blogger," it never feels entirely normal to me. But my good friend Judy says her blog misses me, so for her I will think of something to say. Apparently life, at some time around the holidays, got the better of me and pushed blogging off my radar. I'd warned Judy that I'd probably eventually flake even though I was honestly trying not to.
So, what's been happening? Basically the same stuff that's always happening. Framing pictures and skating. Not simultaneously of course. If I could make a living from skating, I believe I could easily skate eight hours every day. In fact, twice in the past month I've skated MORE than eight hours in a day as a result of participating in 2009's San Francisco"Sunday Streets." Easy; no sore feet or legs or anything. Just pure joy.
I've mentioned before that one of my main skating agendas is to re-grow the famous San Francisco Friday Night Skate. San Francisco, twenty years ago, began to give rise to all the Friday Night Skates of the world -- most of them are still going strong and some have thousands of skaters participating every week. Sadly though, ours has dwindled down to mere dozens and we're not sure why. Most likely just the simple fact that inline skating seemed to lose favor and was replaced by skateboarding; young kids aren't seduced by rollerblading the way they were ten years ago. In fact, neither are adults; ten years ago it was all the rage but now the average age of rollerskaters is probably mid-40s.
One of the ways I've taken it upon myself to attempt to regrow the Friday Night Skate (FNS) is by sending out an inspirational email to the list of SF skaters every Thursday night reminding them to show up! Many skaters tell me they love my weekly emails and some declare that they have saved every one of them in a folder. A few even swear that my email has pushed them off the couch when they were on the fence about attending. But alas, we still rarely even have 50 attendees.
Then, a phenomenon seemed to occur. Last Thanksgiving I was recruited, under duress, to join Facebook. Whatever. Didn't think much about it. But lo and behold, before I knew it, skater acquaintances started finding me and requesting that I be their "friend." I THOUGHT we were already friends! Suddenly I realized there were LOTS of skaters on Facebook. I thought, "hmmm... maybe I've got another tool here for inspiring folks to come out and join in on the Friday Night Skate." So, as a partner to my Thursday night emails, I now send a Friday morning reminder on Facebook. Here's the kicker: skaters are showing up that I've never met, never even laid eyes on; they are FIRST-TIME Friday night skaters! Go figure. Go Facebook!!!

