Charlie Brown On Skates

I came across this old picture of me and my buddy in these old California Pro inline skates. You might be wondering why we seem to be playing some kind of odd Roller Tennis. My wife was doing a story for the Daily Herald on inline skating, and a photographer came out to take some shots of us skating. We usually raided the tennis courts for the nice smooth surface and because we could shoot the ball around and play pickup hockey there.

This guy takes some pictures of us playing hockey, then gets the bright idea for us to hit the ball over the net with our sticks like tennis players, so we do it once or twice. Lo and behold, that is the picture he puts in the paper. How stupid is that? Anyway, the year is something like 1992-1993. You can see I need a haircut. Look at the closeup of the skates - these are the famed “California Pro” models…ooooo. Do you think they could be any stiffer? They are basically a hard plastic shell, with metal frames er, now that I think about it and look at the picture, plastic frames - and absolutely horrible wheels.

You can see how worn the wheels are, we did lots of skating, and the wheels took a beating. They are about 55mm in that picture I think! I had to rotate them every single time I skated. And hey, how about them socks! These were my second or third pair of inline skates, I’m not sure which, but it shows you how far the technology has come along.