The "Senior Roller Skating At The Castle In Lancaster Township" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a story written by Jack Brubaker, Lancaster newspaper's "The Scribbler," about a fellow who is 95 years old who still attends the roller skating sessions that are held at The Castle Roller Skating rink on Elm Street in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Mr. Jack Brown was one of the last soldiers trained in the Army's glider program.  Today he still glides, but on roller skates at The Castle Roller Skating Rink on Elm Ave. in Lancaster Township.  You did read that correctly when I wrote he was 95 years old!   Jack Brown does skate behind a wheelchair and wears a hard hat for safety.  But, that still doesn't change that he is 95 years old!  I told my wife that I have something to look forward to in the future.  I am 17 years younger than Mr. Brown and there is no way I would try and roller skate.  Of course, I would never have tried to roller skate 50 years ago, since I have no ability to roller skate.  The roller-skating rink says that Jack is a sturdy man with an iron grip and a full head of white hair and a flourishing mustache.  Mr. Brown was born in North Carolina and grew up in Maryland.  Today he lives on the Robert Fulton Highway near the Maryland border.  Over his long lifetime he worked as a carpenter and a superintendent of a power plant construction.  He was drafted into the Army in 1946, two years after I was born and he had graduated from high school.  Jack also worked as a carpenter and a superintendent of the construction of a power plant.  He learned how to parachute as well as fly a glider while in the service.  Gliders at that time were light, disposable aircraft towed by airplanes to a site where they were cut loose from the plane and glided to a stop loaded with soldiers and heavy military equipment.  While on a training run, one of the engines of the airplane towing Brown's glider caught fire.  The airplane pilot released the glider and landed safely.  The glider, cruising solo along the Chattahoochee River on the Alabama-Georgia border, followed the water and landed safely on a dry flood plane.  Mr. Brown left the service in 1947 and moved to Maryland where he worked in a power plant along the river.  He also made a pair of water skis and claimed to be the first one to waterski on the Susquehanna River.  He and his wife moved to southern Lancaster, Pennsylvania where his wife died in 2015 and he had a heart attack three months later.  He had successful surgery and was told to exercise regularly.  That's when he chose roller-skating.  He was good at skating forward and backward!  He married his second wife in 2016 and now lives in a home he built himself.  He claims he has always been on the edge.  He has a list of headings for stories about his adventures that he would like to write.  Hopefully he will survive his roller skating sessions.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.