Foreward to Richard Katz's

Skating Unrinked book, published in paperback by HarperCollinsWest in 1994. Or was it '95? If you are not reading this on a screen, stop reading and head to www.Amazon.com. Thanx. Richard Katz = katz@frogojt.com. email

If you didn't really want to read a rollerskating trails book: Back to Richard Katz's Homepage

If you want to go back to the Table of Contents of Skating Unrinked, Back to TOC

Chapter forewar2

Foreward

When I was single I used to rollerskate in the streets quite a bit, and didn't think too much of it when I had to dodge all the cars, busses and pedestrians. It was fun, it was recreational, it was good exercise, and it was low impact, both on the environment and on the knees.

Some years later, my wife Clair, who was not much of a skater, encouraged me to find some safer and more enjoyable places to skate. When we went out as a family, it was important to be time efficient and to be mindful of the kids' safety. It was important to take the hassles out of skating.

So here is a guidebook for all the people who are intimidated by cars and love the out of doors. This is for people who have seen the skates in the store and wondered where they would go to do such a thing; and also for all those people who bought their skates years ago and want to get them out of the closet.

About Places to Eat: For each of the trails in this book we have tried to steer you to one or two places to eat on or near the trail where skaters are welcome. Out in Tiburon, we even found a place where skaters are "More than welcome;" turns out the owner used to run a skate shop nearby. Skating is America's fastest growing sport; at the current rate of growth, seems like pretty soon there will be two skaters per capita. Pretty soon, nobody will find it the least bit odd when you skate in to a restaurant to order lunch. Every place will be like Los Angeles' Venice District, where the Venice Bike Path is not only a great place for family skating, it's totally socially acceptable to skate up to the counter at any establishment and order anything.

I'm from Point Richmond, and I've had ample opportunity to explore this phenomenological sociology of skating with the merchants in my own small town. Little Louie's Deli, no problem, skate on in; Edibles Cafe and Rosemary's Bakery, no problem; Little China, no problem for takeout. The pizza place next to the old firehouse, on the other hand, tells you it's not safe, you might fall down and hurt yourself (the wheelchair people made a Federal case out of something similar to that one a few years back, something about the night manager of a hotel, and the hotel had to pay up). An interesting middle ground is struck by the owner of the Santa Fe Market, who (if you are on skates) will go fetch your groceries while you wait by the door. The Hotel Mac won't serve you any whiskey.

The embedded reasonableness of serving skaters was eloquently summed up at a sidewalk cafe table at Rosemary's Bakery by Rosemary's neighbor, a fellow by the name of McGowan: "I'm in the financial services business," he told me over coffee. "My stock in trade is that I'm reasonable. Why would I turn an investor away just because they've got wheels attached to their feet?" he continued, thereby proving that he's a reasonable fellow indeed. In Port Costa, the other small town featured in this book, a fellow who runs the local landscape gardening shop across from the Cafe told me that rollerskates are okay with the Amish. (I'm going to go back East someday and see if that's true, just go skating on some country road near Lancaster and see if the farmers wave like they do when you're on foot.)

A note about equipment: Make sure the skates you use have 72 mm or bigger wheels. If they don't, you will get tripped up by sticks and stones lying in your path. If you do trip (and it happens to everybody eventually,) make sure you are wearing wristguards and that you have practiced falling forward on them once or twice. Kneepads are nice, elbow pads are neat looking too, but bipeds like us need at a minimum something smooth and hard to fall on, something like the plastic insert in a good pair of wristguards.*

RK

__________

*If you're going out to play some hockey, wear the whole nine yards: gloves, elbow pads, knee pads, shin guards, a helmet, and a visor. And your wristguards. And a stick.

10/10/96

Title: SKATING UNRINKED

Richard Katz and Family

20 Belvedere Avenue

Point Richmond CA 94801

Education is learning from other people's mistakes;

experience is learning from your own.

About the Authors:

Richard Katz and his family have been rollerskating for years. Richard, an excellent skater, is a playwright and runs a computer rental business. His wife Clair, a perpetual "beginner" skater, is an economics professor at U.C. Berkeley. His stepson Daniel, an expert skater, is a teenager who likes fast downhills and plays a mean game of ice hockey. His son Jason is a truly excellent ice hockey goalie who makes amazing saves every game.

About this electronic publication:

When I negotiated for this book with HarperCollins West (the publisher of the paperback, which you can order on the Web from Amazon.com, and get all the drawings and a nice volume to throw in yer car) I reserved the electronic rights. Harper's did a pretty awful job of promoting and selling the book; but rather than sit around and bitch about that, I'm just gonna get all my hard won information out to people via this electronic format. Just bear in mind that this material is copyrighted and you better not print any of this out in any form, because I won't like it and my publisher will kick your ass. What you are reading here is supposed to be in electronic form -- you are supposed to be reading this from a screen, in HTML format --- and if you are reading it any other way, stop right now. You owe us ten bucks, of which I get about seventy-five cents. But don't send me seventy-five cents. Get on over to amazon.com and order a copy, or get on over to your computer and enjoy the text. More links will be added to this text as time goes by; mostly, I would like to extend the number and range of trails by linking to websites that have information as good as what I've published here, where the author (webpublisher) has personally skated every inch of the trail, and can assure you that it's a good place to skate (or at least can warn you of the problems and challenges.) If you live near me (San Francisco Bay Area) get on over to the Friday Nite Skate; I'm the guy with the wide brim hat and the hockey gloves. (Although maybe I'll wise up and wear a helmet myself one of these days.)

Happy Trails. (signed) Richard Katz 1996

Note from the Author: Haven't put in links to the other chapters yet.

From Richard Katz's Skating Unrinked book, published in paperback by HarperCollinsWest in 1994. Or was it '95? If you are not reading this on a screen, stop reading and head to www.Amazon.com. Thanx. Richard Katz = katz@frogojt.com. email

Back to Richard Katz's Homepage

If you want to go back to the Table of Contents of Skating Unrinked, Back to TOC