In Episode 135 of the SK8LIKEYOU Podcast, I sit down with Jack Dieteman, author of the new book As the Wheels Turn: Skating, Dating, and Long Distance Love.
What started with two shoeboxes full of decades old letters eventually became a deeply personal coming of age story built around roller skating, first love, long distance relationships, music, and growing up in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Jack takes me through how those letters helped him reconstruct a period of his life that never really left him, and how sharing a few stories with a small Facebook group unexpectedly put him on the path toward becoming a published author.
We go back to Jack's first time on skates in Minnesota in 1979, when he could barely make his way around the rink, and then to the opening of a brand new rink near his New Jersey home just months later. That rink quickly became his world. We talk about the hundreds of teenagers who packed the building, becoming a rink rat, finding confidence, standing out in a crowd, dating at the rink, and how that environment helped shape the person he was becoming.
But this conversation goes much deeper than remembering the good old days.
Jack and I talk about the difference between nostalgia and actually examining who you were at a particular moment in your life. We get into memory, perception, the internal dialogue we carry with us, and why some experiences from our teenage years remain incredibly vivid decades later. Jack calls the letters he saved not simply nostalgia, but "proof," physical evidence of relationships and emotions that existed long before texts, DMs and social media.
We also talk about the honesty required to tell your own story. Jack made a commitment not to sugarcoat his behavior, even when that meant putting himself in a bad light, while also making sure the women from his past were treated honestly and fairly. That honesty is a big part of what made the book connect with me. The skating is there, but so are the insecurity, excitement, rejection, relationships, mistakes and constant inner questioning that make the story relatable even if you have never put on a pair of skates.
Jack also shares what it was like returning to roller skating decades later and discovering just how much the culture had changed. We compare the rink world he remembers with today's interconnected skate community, adult sessions, traveling skate events, social media, phones on the floor and even silent skate sessions.
