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October 1996 - Skating is Fun
It was not until 1996 that the wifey and I made the decision that the children needed to learn to skate in a real rink. The kids were young enough to run around and have a limitless amount of energy to burn (between eight and twelve years old) but not too old that they didn't want to be seen with their parents. Parents, I might add, who were acting just as crazy as the kids and enjoying every minute of it.
Rollerskating
Luckily for me, the skates that the family all wore had four wheels, unlike the first skates invented in France during the beginning of the eighteenth century by M. Petitbled. I've never tried in-line skates before but the similarity to ice skates makes me feel uncomfortable just looking at them. Since these types of skates hurt my ankles, I will stick to my quad-skates no matter what the style or how fashionable they look.
By 1876, Williams Brown and Joseph Henry patented what continues to be known as the adjustable four-wheel skates that I roll and love. 
Fast forward to 1996. The place was called Skate Key and it used to be located on 2424 White Plains Road, near Allerton Avenue in the Bronx. The Saturday 9:30 am - 12 Noon crowd was filled with a mixture of excited children and their patient parents. The hardcore skaters usually didn't arrive until the evenings. I guess it was too early in the morning for them to show off their unique moves. Even without the experts rushing by, it was hard for the less experienced crowd not to move to the beat of Donna Summer's Love To Love You Baby, KC & The Sunshine Band's Get Down Tonight, Vaughn Mason & Crew's Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll or the ever-famous Rock With You by Michael Jackson.
The big kid in me quickly got tired of rental skates and made certain that we all purchased a pair of our own skates. After many Saturdays and much practice, I finally approached something that looked like speed skating. I found that skating in a crowd was similar to driving a car. Right after I weaved between others, I would check to my left or right. I learned to check my blind spots the hard way after the number of times that I smashed into others. The ego tells you that you're the fastest until you make that unchecked swift move and find that someone else is already where you wanted to be and then, “POW,” you both fall to the floor.
At times, the DJ asked that everyone clear the floor so that only certain people got a chance to show their stuff (boys only, girls only and even fast skaters). It felt great sprinting around the rink and not worrying about the kids. Much to my own amazement, I even learned to skate backwards, which of course tickled my ego to no end.
Unfortunately, the Saturday morning fun ended as the kids got older and we all got different interests. It was time to hang up the old balled-bearing platforms.
Within a year or two the Skate Key Rink then moved to 138th Street in the South Bronx and became known for skating fun and fights. But that particular outlet closed March 2006 because there seemed to be more fighting there skating.
It's sad to see what the original Skate Key building has become on White Plains Road. It looks like a cut-rate clothing store has opened in its place. 
Regardless, I'll always remember the family fun and the pounding beat of the music.
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November 1975 - Roller Rink Black and Blues
I first went to a real roller rink with an old girlfriend, when I was about 20 years old, in 1975. The place used to be called the Empire Roller Skating Center, located in Crown Heights Brooklyn. It's been closed since 2007, which is really a shame because of its long, rich history. Some say that this place was where disco roller-skating was born. Inventive speed skating and hard driving moves such as the Brooklyn Bounce was the theme of this place in the seventies. Speedskating
As we walked in, Donna Summer's "Love To Love You Baby" was moving everyone along the floor. The 20,000-watt sound system seemed to be driving the skaters to prove that one was better than the other. There were flickering strobe lights and the ever-invigorating rush of cool breeze as skaters rushed close to us within the barriers of the rink. Excitement was in the air as we walked over to rent our skates but the thrill of anticipation was about to turn to something else.
After lacing up and then stepping onto the rink, we could not help but feel that we were out of our league. Being novice skaters, my friend and I wondered if we were even in the right place. Watching the aggressive, fast paced maneuvers of the seemingly expert skaters was fascinating to see but intimidating to be in the middle of. It was Saturday night and what seemed like a good idea back in Manhattan, now was feeling like a mistake.
The place was so crowded that if you were about to fall, you couldn't fall. I was genuinely scared, the one or two times that I fell, The thought of getting fingers run over or being knocked down again was a real fear under the circumstances. The amazing thing was that the aggressive skaters were so good at their art that they easily avoided or even jumped over me. I'm not kidding. I actually had a guy jump over me when I was down. It was thrilling to see but not a position I preferred to be in.
We stayed for about an hour and then called it a night. Next weekend, we returned to the famous Empire Roller Skating Center one more time (mostly because my friend wanted to and against my better judgment). My skating was not much better and overall it was just too crowded to relax and have fun. This was not the place to leisurely relive my youth and re-learn to skate. By the end of the night, I decided to hang my rental skates up for a while.
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November 1962 - Feel The Pain
Learning to balance on eight wheels sounds difficult to a first-timer but it really wasn't. My older brother and I were roller-skating together since I was five, both outside and inside of the apartment project. After learning to travel over stones and bumpy concrete outside and rarely falling, my need for Iodine and bandages became less and less over the years. Indoor skating was different though. As we rolled through the hallways of the apartment, mom and dad would pretty much start screaming but what was a couple of young boys supposed to do when there is all that open floor tile and linoleum? My first set of skates was the ones with straps and clamps on the front. They would grab around my sneakers and I had to tighten the clamps up with the skate key. At times, the skates would slip off because kids are always in a hurry and the science of these moving platforms was just too simple. 
All this simplicity changed when the time came for me to learn to ice skate. My short history with these types of skates only spanned over one season, during the winter of 1962. I was nine years old and my father thought it would be a great activity for the growing boys to take what they had learned and apply those skills to a frozen surface. He took us to a sporting goods store and we all got our own brand new skates. Very easy to walk in while at the store, so let's go skating!!
Skating
Is Fun
Imagine what used to be called the Wollman Memorial Skating Rink in Central Park (since 1987, it's been called the Trump Wollman Memorial Skating Rink, after the reconstruction). That crisp November in '62 it was still early but there were others already on the ice.
We sat on a bench lacing up our shoes with the magic metal blades on them. It was cold outside and I quickly wanted to get to skating to warm up. My father could see that my brother and I were obviously impatient.
"Lace them up tight" my father said sternly to my brother and I. "You boys don't want to get hurt." I followed my father and brother unto the ice and found this to be a totally different experience then roller-skating. Regardless of me holding on to the support areas on the sides, I still found a way to fall on my butt. Not only was I cold but now my knees, gloves and butt were wet. This was not enjoyable. My father patiently stood next to me as I pulled myself together. It was difficult to stand and keep the blades perpendicular to the ground but I forced them to straighten out.
I looked across the ice and saw my brother actually making progress. He had already fallen and gotten up quite a few times but now he was ice-skating. That was it. I was going to learn if it killed me. 
I finally did bend my knees and began to move myself forward but it was at a price. It seems that the pressure that I exerted on the muscle along the exterior portion of my right leg between my ankle and knee became increasingly sore as I forced my shoe to straighten. Seems like my thin ankles did not want do what everyone else’s did. I sat down a few times, hoping this would relieve some of the pressure but when I got back up on the ice, it got worst.
My father and brother re-tightened my laces, gave me pointers and encouraged me as much as possible but my ankle was not listening. I was in too much pain. After one more try, I sat gloomily and watched my brother and father while they moved around the rink with increasing agility. Next weekend, I returned to the rink with thicker socks for support but it made no difference. Once we returned home, that was the end of my illustrious career as an ice-skater. To be continued at ....... 
Tech, Lies and Wizardry is not just an enticing choice for a title. There’s a great story attached to this space opera, which does not disappoint. I picked this read knowing that it was a short story (about 25 pages) but as soon after it began, I wished that it could be so much longer.
Morin’s crew of diverse personalities (and/or creatures), are interesting and very well fleshed out. The author quickly shows this, as the unlikely band are thrust into an unexpected mission at the Orion Space Station. The way they “get the job done” is both unexpected and entertaining. I’m curious to know what happens next to this rag tail crew that reminds of the Firefly TV series that I always enjoyed. Bravo to J.S. Morin for a great lead in to what I’m certain are many entertaining novels. Tech, Lies & Wizardry by J.S. Morin
Tech, Lies &
Wizardry
Since the number of people interested in following my work has increased, I've decided to restate how I started this journey. I always felt I had something to share, but I knew that my mental ramblings needed to be in a more concrete form so others might appreciate what I had to say.
A Long Story
I wrote down personal events in the form of short stories for decades, and about thirty years ago, I decided to put them into what I call a Time-Line. Strung together, they would form all of the critical events in my life, from birth to the present. It only seemed to make sense to create a chronological recording system to give further order to my precious facts. The categories needed to perform this extraordinary task noted the dates of every job, schools attended, closest friends, favorite movies, music, places I’ve resided, and every important event that I could remember or scrape together through friends and relatives. As this hobby grew, so did the sheets of paper that I was documenting the information. I taped together sheets to form a continuous timeline until, finally, the running testament of my life stretched out to be about twenty pages long! Because this method eventually became a folding nightmare, I knew that I had to find a better way to keep this information running.
Bad Computers
During the late 1990s, I attempted to use my first computer (an IBM) as a way to keep up with my quest to document my journey permanently. After many hours, the five pages I had so carefully typed suddenly disappeared from the small screen, to my disappointment and discouragement. Not being a typist and, at the time, not knowing what the word back-up meant, I reverted to my paper and pencil in frustration.
​A few years later, my second attempt to try this again occurred with my then-new Compaq computer. This annoying machine helped me to understand what the word crashed meant. I was able to print out the first ten pages of my life, but when the computer choked and finally stopped working, all of my hard work was again lost. If nothing else, I was learning what home computers of the day were capable of. Besides the occasional video game, I was not happy. Still determined, I finally got another literary companion (a Dell computer), but it was another two years before I got the guts to attempt again placing my over-whelming project into a machine. I feared that it might either swallow up my information or die while doing it. I learned to use Microsoft Excel to keep up with all of the dates chronologically. I rejoiced when I discovered that I could even insert pictures and the information to give a clearer picture of the memory I was trying to preserve. As the data turned into longer stories and the images took over more and more space, I felt the need to expand and give more detail to the stories past the Excel program.
By 2010, I decided to convert some form of the information into a self-published book. There was no way that I would write an autobiography and throw it out to the world with all the rich, intimate details of my life, so instead, I used a lot of my own experiences and either altered or added to them. After all, there is such a thing as writer’s privilege. I still find it remarkable how a person can start with one idea and then, through inspiration, follow another path. The feeling that accompanies inspired creativity is a story for another time, though.
As it is now, the purpose is to continue to spread the joy of storytelling to all those who might be interested. I appreciate those that continue to come along for the ride, and I promise to do my best to give you an exciting journey. See you next week, if not sooner.
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An interview done by Ms. Gwendolyn Kiste (posted on her blog on 3/2/16).
Kiste
Welcome back once again! For this week’s interview, I’m thrilled to present the awesome Lloyd Green. Lloyd is a writer with quite an impressive resume. He’s penned numerous short stories and novels, and he has an impeccable eye for research in his historical genre-blending fiction. Recently, Lloyd and I discussed ghosts, horror, and how his incredible writing career came to be. Gwendolyn: A couple icebreakers to start: when did you first decide to become a writer, and who are some of your favorite authors? 
Lloyd: First of all, Gwendolyn, I’d like to thank you so much for the opportunity to be interviewed.
I’ve been writing short stories since I was a teenager and I’ve always been interested in reading science fiction and horror novels. I didn’t seriously think about being a writer until seven years ago. A high school friend, who now lives in another country, located me through Facebook. I proceeded to email her pages and pages of narrative in an attempt to bring her up to date about decades of relationships, jobs and family. She repeatedly commented that what I was sending her seemed more like a fascinating book and asked if I had ever considered writing. Some of the material in those letters, I eventually used in my first book Reflections of EL: In Search of Self. So my need to seriously write science fiction and fantasy really began with this first fan and it expanded from there. Paranormal
Lloyd: Without a doubt, Stephen King is my all time favorite writer. I’ve been reading his work since Carrie first called out to me from the retail bookshelf. The man writes his characters and plots as if he were standing there watching the action. Second is Frank Herbert because of his effective world and history building as shown in his Dune series and finally there’s Orson Scott Card beginning with his book Ender’s Game. I admire the plot twists and secrets in this book and also the following ones in the series. Gwendolyn: You and I share a bit of educational background: we both hold psychology degrees. Has your education ever worked its way into your writing in surprising ways, and do you have any advice to newer writers out there about how to get inside the heads of their characters? Lloyd: If I’ve learned anything, I recognize not to compartmentalize a character. When writing about a criminal, don’t just figure that he must have had a dark past and he has to be evil to the core. His course might have begun with the purest of intentions. The real core of the character is the reasons for the decisions he makes. The more his reasoning feels similar to the reader, the more a reader will identify with the criminal and understand the path that he takes in an attempt to accomplish his goals. Understanding the criminal’s motivations also means the reader understands that there are layers of good and evil in all of us. We are all complicated beings but above all else, we yearn to be noticed and heard. The same holds true for the intellectually disabled individuals who I worked with for decades. Recently, I wrote a short story, “Poor Interfaces,” which describes the relationship between a staff person and the one that he cares for. Being able to relate to the disabled as people who have something in common with you instead of people who are different, moves the relationship from administrator or direct caregiver to one of friendship. There will always be the professional side that has to be maintained but in the long run we are more drawn to help our friends because we feel that we are also helping ourselves. Gwendolyn: Your work often touches upon a variety of paranormal elements. Have you always been a fan of the horror and fantasy genres? 
Lloyd: As far back as I can remember. As a child, I was scared to death of horror movies. When I finally understood that my imagination and what I thought might happen was scaring me worse than the actual event, everything changed. After this realization, I began to look forward to the presentation of the rush of fear that the writers and/or directors were serving up.
I’ve always believed in otherworldly life. We usually become afraid of whatever cannot be concretely explained. I’ve only had one paranormal experience and to this day, I’m not certain if it was real. One morning in 1994, I woke up to find an elderly woman standing a few feet away from my bed. From behind her, sunlight softly bled through the sheer window curtains. Her entire form was shimmering as if she were glowing. Her stringy hair was bleached white and her outstretched gnarly hands reached out towards me. She did not say a word and for this I was thankful because I feared what message she might present to me. I shut my eyes in terror, praying that this horror was not real. When I was brave enough to open one eye, she was not there. I’ve never been able to determine whether the entity was real or a dream. In my writing, I use mystical and/or frightening characters that are just a bit too human. I get the reader to identify with the seemingly odd character by writing about them as if they were a close friend or family member. This would slowly get the new acquaintance crawling under the reader’s skin because they feel they understand the character. In spite of the character being frightening, this finally leads to the reader caring when the creature is not making appropriate decisions. A successful writer has learned to realistically portray the monster, which lives in all of us. Gwendolyn: In some of your work, including The Green Legacy, which takes place in the nineteenth century, you interweave elements of historical fiction. What is your research process when writing a time period piece? Lloyd: I love historical fiction because there is a frame of reference that the reader might already be familiar with. After I decide on the time period, I dig into finding as much information on the town and its people as possible. There will always be fact-finders who will stop what they are reading in order to look up the background circumstances that the writer is describing. Since I’m going through the trouble of documenting and presenting, it only makes sense that I deal with information that can be proven. It cuts down on arguments and it’s a lot less embarrassing when others begin to pick apart facts. While putting together my book, The Green Legacy, I started with a search of my own family tree. I came across a branch that held two different names for the same distant relative. That made it difficult to verify who this person was and her true place within the family. In this case, I collected as much history as I could from relatives and again explored Ancestry.com in an attempt to verify her place in the Green family lineage. Only after all of this did I begin to include this person as part of what I call factual family history. After this foundation was set, I then moved into the fictional story that I really wanted to tell, which is about a sixteen-year old with psychic abilities who is sold into slavery and her secret agenda. Gwendolyn: You’ve written both novels and short stories. How is your process different (or similar) depending on the length of the work? Lloyd: Not really different. I write out my general ideas but I eventually turn it all into a chart. How extensive the chart becomes will sometimes determine the length of the story. The chart is necessary to ensure consistency between plot twists and secrets. As most writers know, you can never say, “I’m going to write a 350-page speculative fictional story today.” Stories take on a life of their own and they will be as long as they need to be. My outline simply helps with consistency because it drives me nuts to proofread and find facts out of place or secrets mistakenly revealed too early. Gwendolyn: Out of your published stories, do you have a personal favorite? Lloyd: That’s easy. “Halloween – 1979.” It was published through Sanitarium Magazine. It’s a short story about two couples that decide to visit a well-know haunted house on Halloween night. One participant discovered that the creeping fear was not contained within the established house of horrors. The basis for this disturbing story is based on a factual personal event. Gwendolyn: Huge thanks to Lloyd Green for being our featured author this week! Find him online at EndlessPerceptions.com and at LloydGreen.org. You can also follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Happy reading!
The original interview can be found at Gwendolyn Kiste's website at gwendolynkiste.com/Blog
My Eye
Surgery
Even the slicing of front area of the eye (let's call it a flap) was not bad. I guess the best comparison is like peeling the skin back from a grape.This had to be done in order to gain access to the cornea. Now the world from this eye was a blur as I waited for Flash Gordon to begin. Joking aside, all of my questions about the procedure had previously been answered and most of what went on was a little frightening but calming at the same time.
The doctor moved the thin flap back in place and then the same procedure was done for my right eye. Amazingly enough, the flaps heals back on the the eye by themselves, sans stitches.
I was discharged to Lenore's care and we found our way to the Metro North train station. Actually, I could see through the bubble lens and dark shades but it was safer to be with someone. As we brushed pass the curious masses, I looked like a blind person but I felt far from it. She deposited me home and I took the apparatus off my eyes. There was little discomfort and everything was crystal clear. While I slept, I wore the bubbles taped to my eyes for about two nights . Had to make certain that I didn't accidentally rub my eyes while they healed.
I know that there are others who have had problems with their surgery but it's been fifteen years since my mine and I've had no regrets. I'm glad that I live in an age where I can get my eyes back and the world again looks beautiful or at least in focus. That's my story with a happy ending. 
Also check out The Man with Two Eyes parts 1, 2 & 3:
I can see clearly now but not forever
soft contact lenses
Previously, I spoke about the crush to this writer's self-esteem to have to wear glasses and then how it hurt more than my ego to wear "hard " contact lenses. I'm not going to bore you with the exaltation of discovering soft, extended wear contact lenses but I will mention that I wore them daily, for about two decades and life was problem free. I would keep them on, day and night and then after a month, I discarded them and then put in a new pair. This arrangement was great as long as I didn't do anything stupid like go swimming without goggles. Of course, like everything else in life, the good times have to finally come to an end.
My biggest gripe with buying eyeglasses in general is that the more features you add (bifocal, scratch resistant, tinting, etc.), the more you have to pay. You could plan to spend about $100.00 but after all the lens features and the designer frames have been added up, you're forking over more than $500.00 and I'm not exaggerating.
To be continued with part four....
My Eye Surgery
Also check out part one and part two:
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