I have a number of activities I like to do, but don’t usually get much time to do them, for a variety of reasons, including access to the resources required. One of those is rollerskating, which I know doesn’t really require much in the way of resources, particularly if you have outdoor wheels on your skates or you have rollerblades, but access to a rink can be a limiting resource. I have standard rollerskates, with jump bars but not outside wheels, and rollerblades, but I live on a street with traffic and no sidewalks, so I still have to go somewhere.
I started rollerskating when I was a wee lad, many years ago. And the place I first learned and spent quite a bit of time rollerskating was a family owned rink right across the street from the cottage my family owns in Alton Bay, NH. The Alton Bay Pavilion was owned and run by the Whitney family, and I have many fond memories of them, the rink, the games, etc. I’ve blogged before about Alton Bay being a favorite place that I go to every year, and through most if my youth, when I would spend several weeks at a time there, rollerskating at the Pavilion was a treat I always looked forward to.
Unfortunately, as the rollerskating boom of the late 70s and early 80s died down, the Whitney family sold the Pavilion, and it went through a series of different uses, including a Country Western dance bar, a storage facility for boats over the winter, and even had a renewal for a year as a rollerskating rink. After being idle for several years, it finally got sold to a developer and was being made into condos. Sniff, sniff as this is not something you can easily revert back to a rink from.
As is my habit, I’m up here in Alton Bay with my kids for the weekend. Once I arrived, I was confused by the state of the Pavilion, since the last time I saw it last fall it was already under construction for conversion to condos. Now it looked like they had rebuilt it from scratch, which seemed like more work than they need to do. I soon found out that they had built it from scratch. I am so out of touch of what happens in this place I visit every summer, I missed this, The Citizen of Laconia – Alton Bay copes with ruined pavilion, this WCSH6.com – Historic Pavilion Burns In Alton, NH, and others, which were on the Internet. On December 14th, 2006, the Alton Bay Pavilion burned down. I had basically accepted that it would never return to the magical place of my youth, but this was still a sad event. I know the mother of the developer of the condos, which they are rebuilding from scratch, and she gave be one of the few pieces of the rink floor recovered, which we’ll figure out some way to display in our cottage. Now I really just have to look forward to whatever will be the ‘magical’ place for my boys as they grow up visiting here every summer.
Perley's Pontificating Place 