Roller skates with wooden wheels

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NIKON D70 - 25 sec, f7.1 at 35mm

Back when my Nana and Pop lived in Gisborne, in the house they had lived in for 40 years (waiting for my Ma to correct me here), I can remember hanging on the wall of the garage was a very old pair of roller skates. They had wooden wheels and leather straps and buckles to strap them onto the bottom of your shoes. The wheels were so old the wood had split and the leather looked worse than an old persons neck skin.

There was plenty of other old crap in Pop's garage but I could never understand why the hell he kept such a useless bit of junk hanging on the wall.

Down in my garage I have a cupboard that has about 20 ice cream containers full of old stuff I haven't been able to bring myself to throw away on the basis that I just know I'm going to need them one day.

Tonight I was looking for a switch I knew I had laying around. It's black with a red button and will be perfect for my project. All I needed to do was to find it in one of those ice cream containers. So I grabbed me a beer and started the hunt for it.

In my stash of important things I found:


  • A non-working/leaking cold start valve for a 1971 BMW Tii that is completely useless. I replaced it with a working one 12 years ago in a car I sold 11 years ago
  • A brand new, still in it's original box, timing chain tensioner for a 1971 Ford 1600cc Cross Flow engine. The last time I needed one of them was 14 years ago
  • A plastic container of rocks (I'm not making this one up) from when I used to have an aquarium 3 years ago
  • A floppy disk with drivers for a Soundblaster sound card circa 1995
  • The bungs out of the 12 foot skiff I sold 10 years ago (I wonder if the person I sold it to wants them back?)
  • Various bits of rope from that skiff that serve completely no useful purpose now, one of which is only about 400mm long
  • About 10kg of nuts and bolts and washers that somehow became spare when I built the rally car 17 years ago
  • A brand new, still in it's box, oil filter for a 1986 Mazda 323GT which we sold back in 1991


It occurred to me part way through the search why Pop had those skates hanging on the wall. He never knew when he might need a pair of buggered roller skates from the 1940s.

And I never know when I might need a rotor out of the distributor of a 1969 Mk1 Escort. Oh, I still got a rotor out of the Tii dizzie too if anyone wants one.

The Photo

Normally I'm not much of a fan of taking the family with me to get photos. I generally feel rushed and I fear that I'm boring them when I spend half an hour to get a photo. But tonight there was no problem at all. We were all gob smacked by Comet McNaught over Auckland city, viewed from Mount Victoria.

UPDATE: I didn't find the switch. I'm buggered if I know where it is. So I'll head off to buy a new one. Perhaps in 30 years I'll stumble over it again.

Map of the photo location
Post Meta

Posted: Monday, 22 January, 2007 22:55

Captured: 2007:01:22 21:50:00

Add your own comment

  • Nice shot!
    Jason - Tuesday, 23 January, 2007 7:08
  • MUCH better than mine! Hey, what's this over here...it's black with a red button and...ah heck, no one would want that...
    seriocomic - Tuesday, 23 January, 2007 7:59
  • Haha, you are a regular freakin comedian.
    Dave - Tuesday, 23 January, 2007 8:24
  • Great shot man... I still haven't seen the Comet yet, damn clouds.
    Daniel - Tuesday, 23 January, 2007 8:42
  • Wot time is best to head to Mt Vic to see it in the real? Second quest...do you know the NASA site to view one's dwelling.....is NASA better than G Earth?
    Michele - Tuesday, 23 January, 2007 10:22
  • Best time is after 9:30pm. If you go up Mt Vistoria, don't drive up. Park your car at the bottom and walk up. It's carnage up there for cars. And Google Earth or Google Maps is the best for aerial photography for your house.
    Dave - Tuesday, 23 January, 2007 10:39
  • When we moved to Australia Denis left behind a huge collection of assorted junk he had collected for over 50 years. Now he is always looking for an odd screw or switch. Moral of this story is never throw anything , you might need it one day. you could always put the old car parts on ebay
    Ma - Tuesday, 23 January, 2007 14:16
  • yes sell those old parts to get $$ for your next project! There may be a rush or demand for the rocks!
    Marise - Tuesday, 23 January, 2007 15:32
  • You want to hang onto the junk at take it to the Antique Road Show,you may get a bomb for the skates. Didn't know there was a comet about. Mind you I live in a word of my own,and I quiet like it. If this posting comes up more than once I'll scream.
    Nova - Wednesday, 24 January, 2007 15:48
  • amazing! there's a comett???
    dean - Monday, 29 January, 2007 18:15

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