Photograph of Cherokee Street Skate Shop Courtesy of the State Historical Society–St. Louis
If the ’70s had never happened, stores wouldn’t have to put Shirt and shoes required stickers in their front windows. It was the era of the guy with long wavy hair and long wavy mustache; the guy in thongs with rainbow soles; the guy who, when he ran out of smokes, ambled to the store wearing nothing but cutoffs and a tan. This confident type, however, also gave us the disco-era roller rink, after slyly noticing the availability of skateboard-style plastic wheels. With no more skate keys, no more metal wheels, no more feeling like your teeth were vibrating like tiny Tesla coils, everyone wanted to skate. And the smoking men with wavy hair aimed to deliver that experience to all—which means their establishments weren’t entirely wholesome. Yeah, there were arcade games, and they played “The Hokey Pokey” along with “Le Freak.” But the lights were turned low; disco lights blittered on the walls. There was often a mirror ball and a smoke machine. On Saturday afternoons, little girls showed up in Fireball skates with pom-pom laces and satiny jackets with a chubby tube of Bonne Bell lip gloss stuck in the pocket, but they knew to stay off the floor when the DJ queued up “Another One Bites the Dust,” because it made the high-school boys skate fast—and backward. “Babe” brought out the teenage couples who’d whirr around, one hand stuck in the other’s back jeans pocket (the one without the giant plastic comb sticking out), and knock a kid down, or into a cinderblock wall, without an apology. When the little girls crouched down to tie their laces, they narrowed their eyes at those dumb girls reeking of Love’s Baby Soft, in their blue eye shadow and blue jeans and feathered bangs. But when a lame song came on—usually something by Yes—and it was safe to skate slow, they pushed out onto the floor, their faces deadpan so no one could tell what they were thinking. And that was when they dreamed of the day when they would wear green eye shadow, not blue, and “wheels” would no longer mean red, white, and blue Fireballs, but some cute boy’s fast car.
