Miscellany: A Tribute to the Palace

When I was a little kid, I used to spend a lot of my time parked in daycare. The teachers and caregivers, thankfully, didn't mind hauling all us kids out and about every so often. One of the favored destinations on these excursions was the Palace roller skating rink in Lake Worth.

One of the problems with these trips is that I never learned how to roller-skate (still don't know how, in fact). The result is predictable - my trips out onto the main rink were more like stuttered walking than anything else. So I spent most of my time in a little training rink that served as a hangout for the nonskaters.

The video arcade was by far the neatest place in the Palace, however. In those days, arcade games were technologically way ahead of home video game consoles, and I relished being able to plop quarters down with my friends on stuff like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "R-Type." As a youngster, though, you have little or no spending money, so I was forced to lurk and play games that others had abandoned, or to scavenge change off the ground.

Driving past the area recently has been a shock. The whole place is gone now, torn down to make room for new development. But I think a part of it still lives on in the memories of Palm Beach residents of a certain age...