was practicing a jump at a little ice rink near our house, "You can learn to do the ollie. Just relax and let your arms out." So I tried to learn the ollie. Well, I just could not get the ollie right. My balance was all wrong, and I could not get that rotation going. Well, we went home. About five minutes after we got home, Daddy asked me if I could do the trick on our smooth concrete driveway. We used the driveway for skating and for sledding, too. I looked at the driveway, and I thought, "Well, this might be different. That driveway is concrete, not ice, and it would be more like a sidewalk. And besides, Daddy was watching me very closely." The next thing I knew, I was on my back and my skate was under my chin. I remember that I didn't think too much about it. I didn't know what I had done, but I do remember that I was surprised that I had done it. So, Daddy helped me get up. He told me that I must be on my toes instead of my skates. I was so surprised, and I couldn't stop laughing. He said, "I have to change the wheels on my car because of you!" He was so tickled that he sat down and laughed his head off. I'll never forget the look on his face. But I still remember the feeling in my stomach. I was so proud, too. The wheels on the car in the garage were white, so it was very easy to see just how tall I had been able to jump up to get on them. JACK: Did you ever learn to do an ollie before you did it on the driveway? MARY: I think we started to do it on the driveway a little bit before we did it on the concrete. JACK: When you learned the ollie on the concrete, how did you know that you were doing it right? Did you see some special thing, or did you just know? MARY: We were very lucky that we had a smooth concrete driveway. Most of the time we would skate on packed dirt, so we could not learn the trick just from looking at it. We had to practice the ollie a lot. If you fall, you have to jump right back up again. The first time Daddy gave me a skateboard, he told me that I was to do the ollie whenever I felt like it. He didn't tell me not to do it on ice or on our smooth concrete driveway. As I said, sometimes he would tell us to do it. We always thought we had to do the ollie on ice. But we were able to do it all on the concrete by just practicing. I think he was trying to teach me about doing it wrong. The board didn't really travel in a nice curve, so I had to learn how to do it right. We probably fell a lot before we got it right. I guess there were just some things we did wrong before we did it right. There was so much practice that we were very lucky. I do remember one time, though, when we did not know how to do the ollie. One time Daddy wanted to go in the shop where he had gotten the skateboard. We were skating on the street near our house, and we turned onto the sidewalk that went down the driveway. After we got to the gate to our backyard, I got onto the concrete and stood up on my skateboard to go over the gate. My skate was over my head and I was walking. I wanted to get on the driveway, because that was the quickest way home, but I could not find the trick. It was too late to turn around and try it again, so I walked all the way home on my skateboard. I was so tired that I fell asleep on the sidewalk! I think that I was so mad at myself, that I just decided to give up on the ollie for a while. But we were able to get it right eventually. JACK: It looks like you had some fun in the summers. How did you get to be so good? MARY: I think it was hard work. Daddy would come home after work, then he and Mom would take us shopping. Daddy would buy us new stuff for our skates, or he would buy us candy and other stuff, and we would have supper. Then we'd play outside. When it was time to go home, we would take all of our things inside (sometimes in our parents' car, sometimes in our van). Sometimes we'd ride our bikes, and we'd get a ride home with Daddy. It was so much fun to go into the house from riding our bikes! Then I would eat a couple of our cookies, which were always homemade. I remember having ice cream and cookies in our basement when we got home from shopping. I can't believe it, but I think I started to learn how to ollie at the age of six! JACK: What is your favorite meal? MARY: We usually have beef or pork ribs on Sunday. I don't remember any other meals that we've had for a long time. But we did have lots of meatloaf and soups. We don't have pork very often, but when we do, it is on the top of the menu. Mom was a cook, so she made all kinds of different meals. We usually had her meatloaf or some kind of casserole. It was always different. Daddy always had some kind of a special, too. He's a great cook. We all had our different things that we liked, so we all had something to eat every night. That was one thing we did have. JACK: What kind of food do you like? MARY: I have a favorite meal and a favorite dessert. JACK: Do you have any advice for kids that are trying to learn to skate safely? MARY: I think that the skating helps you balance your body. Most of us have a hard time with balance. I don't skate in the winter. I go to skating classes, and that helps me with the balance. You really have to be patient. JACK: Do you think that girls could learn to skate? MARY: I don't know! I hope so, though. My sister has learned how to ride her bike by the time she was four. If we could skate, maybe she would be able to go on wheels in the wintertime! JACK: Do you remember where you got all of your equipment? MARY: My parents bought it for us at a sporting goods store. JACK: Do you remember what skates you had? MARY: We had a red one that had three wheels and two in the front. It was the best skate I think we ever had. I know they didn't make them that long ago. They may have been made a long time ago, though. I never got to ride in them. We had another skate that had three wheels, too. It was green. We also had a different color and a different size of wheels. I think I still have those skates, but I've never used them. It may be too late to use those skates, though. We just haven't got them in that size. But I have gotten some new ones. They are not the ones that Daddy used. I was so lucky that we could skate on all that hard, smooth concrete. I never knew that concrete was so smooth. I had a friend once who had ridden on the road, and we were able to do all kinds of things with our skates. We went on everything. We would do tricks, spins, and falls. It was so much fun! We didn't even have to move around a whole lot to do them. We just had to kick our feet out. When I look back on those days, I think it was much more fun than going to the mall or going to a movie. We were having fun! We just loved it. I wonder if my parents ever wondered if we had gone too far with the number of times that we went to the skating rink? They must have, but they never said anything. It was their job to keep us in skating clothes, too. I guess it's always hard to keep track of what you are spending for a child. We just loved it. We loved to do it all. You probably had to make us take it easy. JACK: What do you think your parents might have done if you hadn't learned to skate so well? MARY: I don't think I would have. I'm not too sure what they would have done, but I think that they would have worked on it with me. We all have had lots of luck in that we all have been able to be active when we were young. JACK: Do you think you learned how to do the tricks through skating classes? MARY: I didn't learn them at skating class, but at home, too. I didn't have much ice time until I was about eleven or twelve. I learned them at home. It's hard