Entries this day: Olympic_skate_met_Kim_Zmeskal_and_Sonja

Olympic skate met Kim Zmeskal and Sonja

21 May 1996

I have been skating lots and lots lately, and have written no stories since they're all about the same. Tonight, skating was different.

Today the Olympic Torch was paraded down Memorial Drive into downtown Houston, and we skaters were invited to skate with the parade!! I got to Memorial Park area at 6:30pm, expecting a much smaller crowd than what I found. There were tons of people on foot, skates, bikes, cops on horses, and lots of golf carts parade vehicles full of people. Three hook-n-ladder fire engines, 3 or 4 trucks and/or trailers with varied groups all in costume. Area Youth Choir, Texas Army, some cloggers, some African style drummers, cheerleaders, something else, a few Art Cars, and 10 count-em 10 BMWs with various celebrities in them. (More on one of those in a sec)

While the parade assembled, I skated up and down the row of vehicles, talking to various people from various places. I talked to Leonard, who I knew as a cartoonist from UH, and who was now taking photos for the UH paper. I told the kids in the choir, "yes, I *promise* I actually shook hands with one of the Rockets." (I don't know who, but he was tall.) The cloggers asked where I got my knee pads; they have a dance(?) move or something that requires them to kneel hard on the floor.

Pretty quickly, it became 8pm, and time for the parade to roll. We skaters snuck our way right in front of the front BMW, which happened to be carrying Kim Zmeskal, Gold(?) Medalist from the 1992 Olympics! I was amazingly pleased with that. I said HI to her a bit, that I'm a non practicing gymnast, and that I still have a photo of her from Time magazine in my scrapbook. (Oops. I just checked, and apparently I was mistaken.)

For the first 15 or so minutes, I skated up and down the length of about half of the parade, until I got griped at by a cop. So, I went back up to where the skaters were and talked with Kim. Turns out that she skates. So I gave her our "Come Skate with US: Urban Skaters" card, and she said she may join us. (no pun intended) That will be totally cool if she does.

The parade went under a bridge that had cool sloping concrete, and only a few people under it. I skated up and down it about 4 times, pleased that I never wiped out.

Near the end of the route, we skaters were not allowed to join the BMWs to the backstage area of the final torch area thingamajig, so we skated around to the front with the rest of the public, and they had singers and speakers and the mayor said some stuff and then there were fireworks and all that. During that time, I met Sonja, who I realized, as soon as she said her name, that I had met her over a year, maybe 2 years ago, skating. Wow! I told her that I remembered her as the first female skater I had ever met who would jump ramps and do all the cool stuff that some of the guys would do. She replied, "that *was* a long time ago!"

After all the fireworks and such, Sonja and I skated over to Jones Plaza, where it was SuperTejano night. (I guess it would be pronounced Ho'nace Plaza) We sat and watched Ed and other skaters grind on the steps. Ed was practicing a new soul stance(?) or something equally impressive.

Sonja and I cruised over to Texas Club parking garage, one of my favorites in Houston. I suggested that we not go to the top floor, so we could avoid seeing the sign that says "NO SKATING." About halfway down, Sonja slipped and scraped her leg a bit. (yeah yeah that's why the sign is there.) She sexistly said, "no sweat; I'll take it like a man." We skated the rest of the way down without incident.

Skated to Brewery Tap, where we got water and Sonja cleaned her abrasion. Then we skated over to Fuzzy's where she was parked, and we talked a bit with Oliver, foreign exchange student from Germany. We taught him some Texan slang like, "We're fixin' to skate and I recon y'all can join us ifyewanoo." That was entertaining.

It became pretty late, so we went home.