Skater Rolls the Extra Mile (3,000 of Them) to Fight AIDS

In Southern California, few people pay much heed to a tall, tan, blond man roller-skating down the street in exercise tights and a T-shirt. The same figure zipping down a rural road in the Midwest, however, cannot help but attract attention.

California indifference aside, that is why Maryland blacksmith Don Dressel decided that roller-skating across country this summer would be an ideal way to raise the awareness of young people about AIDS and how to avoid the deadly disease.

Dressel, 34, left Maryland on June 3 and had traveled more than 3,000 miles before he puffed over Topanga Canyon on Wednesday. As he traveled the country, he stopped in small towns and big cities to talk about the myths and realities of AIDS, to encourage people to help AIDS sufferers in their communities, and to raise money for health organizations that assist AIDS patients.

Arrived Last Week

Dressel arrived in Southern California last week. He skated west on Ventura Boulevard from the Cahuenga Pass to Woodland Hills on Tuesday. He left the next day for the Pacific Coast Highway and San Francisco--his final destination.

Until now, he said, the fight against acquired immune deficiency syndrome has been waged mainly by two specific groups: the gay community, and friends and relatives of the sick. Dressel said he does not fit into either category. He said he is just a concerned citizen who felt he had to spread a message.

“I did this to show other people that they don’t have to be in any group to be involved with AIDS,” he said over a breakfast of a milkshake, toast, cereal, juice and fruit. “I am just a regular guy doing this, but you don’t have to do what I am doing to have an impact. You can do something in your own community. People without cancer support cancer research. Why not AIDS?”

Dressel’s trip through Southern California has been disappointing, he said, because people seem uninterested in his venture. But in the dozens of small towns, people always took notice, he said.

Many Questions

As soon as he and his support van, with the slogan “Roll Over AIDS” emblazoned on the side, rolled into a town, he said he was almost immediately swamped by folks with questions. A hotel manager in one small community was so impressed that he called the city officials, who gathered at the local fire station to hear Dressel talk.

His most emotional encounter, Dressel said, was with a 20-year-old in a small town in Indiana, who approached Dressel as he arrived.

“He said he was surprised that we were not escorted out of town,” Dressel recalled.

The young man then confided that moments earlier his doctor had told him that he had tested positive for the AIDS virus. He sobbed, saying he had lived in that town his entire life and feared that he would be driven out when people discovered he had AIDS.

“He cried for 40 minutes,” Dressel recalled. “He said he did not know anybody who stayed more than a day after learning they had AIDS. We were talking about what he could do. I was the first person he told.”

Not everyone Dressel has met, however, has been supportive.

Missouri Incident

He remembered stopping at a red light on a Missouri road next to a car with a family. The children in the back were squirming to try to see and wave at him.

“The dad yelled out to his kids, ‘Don’t look at them!’ I guess they think they all have AIDS now because they read it on the truck,” Dressel said.

Others took a dimmer view of his methods than his message. Dressel usually skated 35 to 50 miles a day, with his support van following closely behind. His average speed was about 10 m.p.h., and he allowed plenty of time to stop and talk. He usually stopped just before dark, and always tried to stay out of the way of cars.

But in Salina, Kan., he said, a sheriff’s deputy in a patrol car pulled up next to him, screamed that Dressel could not skate in the street, then sped away. The only problem, Dressel said, was that there were not many sidewalks to use instead.

And in Colorado, legislation designed primarily to stop people from skiing on mountain roads in winter also outlawed skating on public roads. Dressel received de facto permission to skate from the Colorado state line to Denver, but from Denver he rode in the van until he reached New Mexico, where he resumed skating.

Generally Successful

Dressel said the journey has generally been successful in terms of heightening awareness about AIDS. However he said he is frustrated with the lack of financial support from businesses and corporations, which he said he approached before the trip began. He has also asked for pledges and donations along the way for the foundation he established in Maryland--The Roll Over AIDS Foundation.

Dr. Keith Rollings, former director of Baltimore’s Office of AIDS Policy Coordination, said Dressel plans to give the money he raises to health organizations across the country that assist AIDS patients. Rollings also said the city had verified that Dressel’s organization was legitimate.

Dressel said he has received $28,000 in donations and pledges and has spent $10,000 of his own money to pay for the trip. One expense, he said, are wheels for each of the three different types of skates he uses. He said he changes at least one set of wheels each day.

Dressel said that if he had enough money, he would roller-skate back to Maryland rather than fly as planned. Early in his trip, he said, he talked to a group of 100 third-graders, who asked him how he would return from San Francisco.

When he told them he was taking a plane, “they all started booing. They said I should skate back because then I could talk to so many more people.”