News from all over - Ashland
Jim Thomas first strapped metal wheels to his feet in 1935. "I started with those old iron skates," Thomas remembers, "with old steel wheels, and just skated through the years."
Years when he swept floors at his neighborhood rink, just for the free admission. Years during wartime, when he rolled around Sydney, Australia, on leave. Years filled with bobby socks, disco and Madonna.
And, finally, the early '90s, when he wired an odometer to his skates. It's up to 30,000 miles - thousands more than enough to circle the Earth. Thomas, a Charleston, W.Va., native, worked as a heavy equipment operator, ran an asphalt company in the late '60s, served as a road superintendent, then became "semiretired" in 1986, which meant he could put in more dedicated roller skating time. "You can't work 12 to 14 hours and go out and roller skate at night," he said.
By 1992, Thomas began tracking his mileage on the quarter-mile asphalt track at Sissonville. "I was always skating there and one day a woman asked how many miles I'd skated," he said. "I told her I didn't know, and she said. 'I come to work at 8 and you're here and still here when I go home at 4' ... so I started keeping a record."
Turned out he had been wheeling 25 to 30 miles a day. "The world record is 19,000," Thomas said. "I passed that in 1996." But he's not in Guinness' book. To him, that's not really what it's all about.
"See, back in the old days, we skated with the flow of the music, most of it organ music," he said. "If you get that glide going, you just feel so free out there, and your body gets a workout. If you miss a week, you can tell it."
"I won all kinds of contests," he said. "And I could do some of it on skates ... course, those days are gone now." Those were days in the early '30s when portable rinks came to town, under tents. "People in the coal fields, they couldn't afford to build a rink so they'd move them wherever they could get some business." Days when he met his wife, on skates of course.
Years when he swept floors at his neighborhood rink, just for the free admission. Years during wartime, when he rolled around Sydney, Australia, on leave. Years filled with bobby socks, disco and Madonna.
And, finally, the early '90s, when he wired an odometer to his skates. It's up to 30,000 miles - thousands more than enough to circle the Earth. Thomas, a Charleston, W.Va., native, worked as a heavy equipment operator, ran an asphalt company in the late '60s, served as a road superintendent, then became "semiretired" in 1986, which meant he could put in more dedicated roller skating time. "You can't work 12 to 14 hours and go out and roller skate at night," he said.
By 1992, Thomas began tracking his mileage on the quarter-mile asphalt track at Sissonville. "I was always skating there and one day a woman asked how many miles I'd skated," he said. "I told her I didn't know, and she said. 'I come to work at 8 and you're here and still here when I go home at 4' ... so I started keeping a record."
Turned out he had been wheeling 25 to 30 miles a day. "The world record is 19,000," Thomas said. "I passed that in 1996." But he's not in Guinness' book. To him, that's not really what it's all about.
"See, back in the old days, we skated with the flow of the music, most of it organ music," he said. "If you get that glide going, you just feel so free out there, and your body gets a workout. If you miss a week, you can tell it."
"I won all kinds of contests," he said. "And I could do some of it on skates ... course, those days are gone now." Those were days in the early '30s when portable rinks came to town, under tents. "People in the coal fields, they couldn't afford to build a rink so they'd move them wherever they could get some business." Days when he met his wife, on skates of course.
