Reporter’s Notebook -- Deirdre Newman

Ah, the joy of in-line skating. The undeniable thrill of careening

wildly down a path with only a faint glimmer of hope that when your brain

shrieks “Stop!” your heel will obey. In-line skating, for the

uninitiated, is a sport that requires you to suspend logic and common

sense and everything you ever learned about skating in the past and to

completely let yourself go, and go, and go. Because, as any in-line

skater knows, stopping is definitely the hardest part.

Stopping on in-line skates -- by using a brake on your heel -- is

counterintuitive to us old folks who grew up roller skatingand ice

skating.

In fact, stopping can be so difficult that for most beginners -- OK,

mostly myself -- stopping is usually synonymous with crashing into the

nearest stationary object, whether it be a pole, a fence or the nearest

human being. A grassy field once offered itself up as the perfect

stopping point when I dove into it after blading down a short ramp and

the rails failed to slow me down.

As an avid in-line skater who has almost graduated from crashing as a

means of stopping, I was appalled to see that someone was critically

injured last weekend while skating near the Back Bay after being hit with

paint-ball pellets. The terrain itself can be riddled with a plethora of

pitfalls, such as bumps and cracks, and elevations that can make the most

experienced skater swerve, sway and slide uncontrollably without adding

outside elements to the mix.

When paint-ball pellets come flying out of nowhere, it would be

virtually impossible for even members of Cirque du Soleil to keep their

balance.

A helmet probably would have prevented a cracked skull, but many

in-line skaters I have seen -- myself included -- usually forego head

gear in favor of knee pads and wrist guards, which cover areas where

injuries usually occur. I will definitely grab a helmet when I go blading

in the future.

And although I have never bladed near the Back Bay, as a new resident

of Newport Beach, I would like to be able to explore the trails with my

usual fear of falling not exacerbated by the fear of a paint-ball ambush.

I am impressed that the Paintball Products Manufacturers Assn. is

offering a reward for the perpetrators and hope that the guilty parties

come forward.

* Deirdre Newman covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at o7 deirdre.newman@latimes.comf7 .