Linda English picked up a new pair of roller skates on her 50th birthday, the first time since she dabbled in skating during the craze in the ’70s. She is now 64, and still skates two to three times a week at the Skatin’ Place, the outdoor skating rink that’s been in Golden Gate Park since 1986.
“It completely changed my life,” she said. “It brought me so much joy, community and fitness.”
The change started with her closet: Once filled with all-black clothes, now it’s full of sequins, rainbows, and feathers. On a recent Friday, English sported a two-piece tracksuit with purple leopard print and a custom-made pair of gold skates with pink wheels.
On weekends, especially sunny ones, the Skatin’ Place is popping with all manner of skaters. Some play music. Some dance. Some bring bubble machines. Some skate around with small dogs perched on their shoulders. But at 10 a.m. on a chilly, overcast weekday, English and her friend Nicole Wong had the place to themselves. They were out earlier than usual, but they wanted to catch a session before it rained.
“It feels like we’re getting bombed every day with all these sad things,” said English, alluding to the national political climate. “So right now, we’re all skating more than ever.”
Just a few minutes ago, Wong had been crying on the bench after getting “really, really bad news,” English said; she declined to share more. Now, Wong was making graceful laps around the psychedelic mural covering the rink’s surface. She seemed lost in her music, playing through her headphones, at times extending one leg and raising her arms, like a ballet dancer.
“It frees your mind,” said English. “You are flowing in the moment, and you feel a sense of freedom and expansion, and connection with people around you. Then you’re like, ‘Life can still be beautiful and magical.’”
Two years ago, English lost her husband of 39 years to cancer. “Skating carried me through grief,” English said. In the darkest days, it was hard to get herself to the park. “But as soon as my skates were on my feet, I’d be okay.”
The city’s skating community is like no other, said English. When skaters from other cities stop by, she said, they comment on how non-competitive the scene is. They also note the accessorizing; skaters bring out flowy silk fans, extravagant roller-disco outfits, and “all kinds of crazy costumes,” knowing that they’ll be accepted.
Roller skating “gives them an excuse” to dress up, English said. “Once you put on skates, they unlock a whole other world.”
For English, the new world extends beyond outfits. As a girl growing up in San Francisco, she was always the last to get picked on sports teams. After she started skating again, she learned distance skating and started a group called SF Rollergirls. In a pack of five, they would skate all the way from the Skatin’ Place on 6th Avenue to the ocean and back.
Once a week, she still gets on her rollerblades, which have only one line of wheels instead of two, making it easier to navigate rough terrain, puts her five-pound chihuahua Peanut in a backpack, and skates for 10 miles.
When she was 55, she also began going to skateboard parks, taking road trips all over the Bay Area, from Millbrae to Fremont.
“When you’re standing at the top of a bowl going to drop in, it’s one of the scariest things,” she remembered. “Once you’re able to accomplish that, you feel like a badass.”
And then there’s the dance skating. “You enter another universe,” said English. “You’re just in a groove that you can’t get without having wheels on your feet. You see us out here and you see it in our faces. We’ve just entered this magical realm.”
Some Sundays, the Godfather of Skating, David Miles, Jr., comes to the park to emcee. Skaters stand in lines and step-dance to the music. The skates clack on the ground, and everyone is “all on the same beat together.”
“It’s like nothing else,” English said. “I had moments where I’ve felt so much happiness, and I wish everybody could feel that in life.”
She’s worked to help others feel those moments too. About 10 years ago, English became a certified skating instructor at the Church of 8 Wheels, a former church in the Fillmore that is now a rink. Whether she’s teaching kids “who fall over and over again and they don’t care,” or older adults who say they haven’t skated in 20 years, by the end of the first session, she said, “their faces light up, and you know that you may have changed their life the same way my life has changed.”
Over the years, her personalities on and off the skates have merged. She is no longer the soft-spoken, easily-intimidated woman she once was, who would put on a fun outfit only to cover it up with track pants for her commute to the park. She is a “badass” skater, she said, unafraid of what others think.
“Now I am just straight up Linda Lovestoskate,” she said, as she reached into the stroller where her dog Peanut napped under a blanket, and pulled out a card, emblazoned with the name of her roller skating alter ego.
She is now 64. How long does she want to keep skating?
“Forever,” she said, without hesitation. “Bury me in my skates.”
I am a 70 year old skating instructor. I give free lessons to kids, teenagers, college students, and adults. I have been skating twice a week for 58 years. Love it!
Hello Peanut and Linda!
Magic! Wish her and other skaters all the very best! 😊