Break gives chance to find dream

Like many children of the ’80s, I once owned a pair of roller skates. Like many of my peers, my own brief but promising skating career was terminated prematurely by the advent of Nintendo I.

But for the roller skating generation, now struggling to remain upright in the slippery rink of adult life, there will always be a soft spot in our hearts for a the simple joy of a four-wheeled memory — the sticky grip of a couple skate, the thrill of a roller-limbo contest, the embarrassment of your mom rushing into the rink with Neosporin and a band-aid.

Personally, when I think of roller skates, I am reminded of a bygone era of my own life, a truly special moment in time and space when everyday life seemed at least a couple thousand miles away.

I am reminded of Spring Break, Las Vegas, 2003.

An assortment of former Beacon editors and I had decided to spend a few days in Vegas to honor the forefather of gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thomson. He would’ve been proud, we imagined, to see a new generation of aspiring journalists combing through the glittering ruins of Sin City in search of the American Dream.

We didn’t have to look far. Sitting in a Mexican bar in one of the casinos, the American Dream found us first. It was bruised, haggard and in the process of being broadcast live on CNN.

On the television screen above us, President Bush had just declared that the United States was going to war.

If you don’t feel like investing too much of your fear and loathing into the reality of an impending war, Las Vegas is an ideal locale for distraction. Between the flashing lights, cacophony of slot machine bells and zombie consumerism, it’s no wonder the city didn’t blink an eye when our president made it official that tens upon thousands of people were going to die.

But I wasn’t so easily fooled. Upon the realization that I was trapped in a surreal and politically comatose alternate universe, I surrendered my poker face and began to cry, right there at the bar.

I cried as my friends, trying to cheer me up, bought me a fishbowl-sized margarita. When the tears kept coming, they took me to see a laser light spectacular. No luck. In a last ditch effort, they secured me a ticket to the premiere of Celine Dion’s brand new show.

“But we heard that Justin Timberlake is hosting it, and that it’s being filmed live for prime time television!” they protested gently.

I cried even harder.

Bleary eyed and wobbly, I stared out into the spineless mega-strip mall of capitalist desperation that is Las Vegas. That’s when I spotted one final surviving icon of the so-called American Dream.

It was a mountain of bargain-basement roller skates, piled high in the window of a discount sneakers outlet.

Old-school, they eschewed the seductive aerodynamics of modern inline roller skates, clinging instead to a traditional four-wheeled value system. They looked radiant in a pool of artificial light — shoelaces tangled in a display of unity, tongues silently articulating words like “freedom” and “justice for all.”

I was sold, and so were my friends. We each bought a pair and strapped them on immediately, giddy with newfound hope and transported back to a time when a booming economy meant a raise in our allowance.

If we had strapped rockets to our shoes, we couldn’t have skated faster along the city’s main drag. We skated in and out of casinos, gliding figure 8s around blackjack tables and angry security guards. We skated past the Venetian fountains, the Pyramid and the skyline of New York.

It felt as though we were skating across the very face of the planet, hand-in-hand and racing together toward some great unknown. Maybe it was the empty desert, or some crappy souvenir shop, or a 24-hour all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. We didn’t know, and we didn’t care. Our bingo card spelled “Possibility.” For an afternoon, the roulette table of life was on our side.

To this day, I keep that pair of roller skates in the backseat of my car. To combat the occasional moment of worldly despair, I take them out and go for a skate around the block.

It reminds me that the American Dream still exists, independent of freedom-squashing Republican presidents. “Shock and Awe” doesn’t have to mean death and destruction; it can mean you just skated really fast down a hill without falling down.

My 2005 Spring Break challenge to you is this: Keep your eyes open, wherever you are, for evidence of the American Dream — even if you think you’ve escaped its radar. It comes in many shapes and sizes, and oftentimes it shows up in unlikely places.

For example, it gets a big kick out of vacationing in Cancun.

— Leslie Wylie is a graduate student in Journalism. She can be reached at LWylie82@aol.com.