Indeed,
the patrol may be the only thing that will keep roller skating from being rolled right out
of the park. In the face of complaints from less
athletic park lovers, it has already been banned at the Music Concourse, Stow Lake, the
Children's Playground, and six other quiet areas of the park.
Roller skate rental trucks have been given their rolling
papers for August 29 by the.
Board of Supervisors, unless a decision is made to let
them stay. The loud disco tunes that skaters once rolled to have been banned. People now
disco-roll to tunes inside transistor headphones.
Miles believes that the year old roller patrol, an
all-volunteer, multi-racial group of mostly young skaters who keep people out of the
banned areas and help injured skaters can keep them from a total ban.
To raise money for walkie talkies and other equipment, the
group will hold a $l5-per-coIitestant freestyle competition for roller skate hot-doggers
on Sunday, August 24,at Le Park skate club on South Van Ness Avenue.
Miles, 24, a former bricklayer from Kansas City, Mo.
started his own skating career about a year ago when he moved here, took a tour bus
through the park and saw the skating.
"I thought, 'Hey, that's real sharp. I'm going to get
me some skates,' " said Miles, who yesterday was wearing kneepads, necklaces
featuring the Superman symbol and the Incredible Hulk, the patrol uniform donated by
Rector'Sporting Goods in Santa Rosa, and $115 Ridell boots with Kryptonic wheels. "I
made a whole lot of friends. You don't see nobody out here calling nigger or honkie. I'd
never seen anything like that before."
Since he learned to skate and joined the volunteer patrol,
Miles said he has missed only two Sundays: once to participate in a San Diego skate meet,
and the other to skate the full distance from San Francisco to Los Angeles in five days. |