Rolling on Through the Years : Old-Time Organ Music Draws Old-Time Skaters

When the organ begins to play, the two men lock arm-in-arm and glide in unison around the maple wood rink, gracefully weaving in and out among 50 other skaters.

“I used to get out there and lead the pack,” said Harv Grant, a skater since 6, laughing. But these days the 75-year-old retired bus driver concedes his moves might not be as aggressive as they were before he lost his eyesight 18 years ago. So he and partner Herb Potter, 65, skate along the wall, leaving the fancy moves to the younger set, say those in their early 60s.

It’s Tuesday night at Dominic’s Moonlight Rollerway in Glendale, where the skating has hardly changed in 40 years, even if the skaters are a little older.

Grant and Potter, whose wives don’t share their love of skating, have been meeting there for the past 12 years. They first skated together in the 1930s, then fell out of touch. Reunited by a chance conversation over CB radio, they have made Tuesday nights at Dominic’s a ritual. They mingle with other old-timers--many of them regulars for decades--who come from as far as Lancaster and San Bernardino for the only live organ skating left in Southern California.

The attraction is owner Dominic Cangelosi, who has been playing the organ for roller skaters since he was a teen-ager in the 1950s.

From his booth several feet above the rink, Cangelosi, 55, plays the electric organ and watches as his customers glide to the reverberating beat. He pulls binders bursting with sheets of music from a nearby shelf and plays ‘40s and ‘50s tunes, such as “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” and “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”

Multicolored lights reflect on a mirrored ball over the center of the rink as the skaters circle the 70-by-175-foot floor.

Originally Harry’s Roller Rink, at 5110 San Fernando Road, the rink opened in 1950 in an idled factory where parts had been manufactured during World War II. It was one of only two rinks in the Los Angeles area that serenaded its skaters with live organ music. The other, in Pasadena, closed in 1975.

Cangelosi began playing the organ at the Pasadena rink. When it closed, he went to work at Harry’s in Glendale and has stayed there ever since. In 1985, he used his life savings to buy the rink and gave it his name.

At first, Cangelosi played live organ music seven nights a week. Then with the birth of rock ‘n’ roll and the arrival of younger skaters, he made room for a deejay’s booth that plays pop music four nights a week. But Tuesdays have remained the same.

“This rink is one of the few holdouts of the old style of skating,” Cangelosi said. “We call the Tuesday night people our old-timers. They’re just people that love to roller skate and they just can’t get it out of their blood.”

Cangelosi plays every Tuesday from 8 to 10:30 p.m. He varies the skating program from marches to polkas to waltzes and watches below to see if his music has inspired the moves of his audience.

At one point, Cangelosi calls a couple’s dance. Next he calls a trio, then skating for all.

For Grant and Potter, the night reaches its peak when Cangelosi announces rexing, a form of backward skating. The pair skate toward the middle of the rink, arm in arm, and glide backward round and round.

“You can feel his love for the music and for the rink,” Potter said afterward.

The regular skaters say the music is just as good as it was 40 years ago, even if the prices are more up-to-date. However, with a $5 admission price and $1.50 for skate rentals, the Glendale rink is still one of the least expensive recreational activities in town.

It is also one of the few establishments that clings to old-fashioned values. Skaters are not allowed to wear in-line skates, hats, hair combs, or dirty and frayed clothing. Obscene language is prohibited.

“It’s a concert here,” Manny Dwork, 73, of Los Feliz, said. “Even if you didn’t skate and just came for the music it would be worth the admission. I’ve seen kids (who) skate here get married and have kids--and their kids skate here now. There’s no smoking or drinking and if they use a four-letter word, it’s love. “

Ed Weaver, 60, of Pasadena said skating is one of the best forms of exercise, but he returns each week for the company too.

“It’s a nice group of people,” Weaver said. “It’s like going to a square dance because you meet the same people every week.”

A former roller derby skater, Pat Hathaway, 63, has skated at Dominic’s since it opened.

“It’s great exercise and I have a heart problem,” she said. “But there’s some good-looking old guys here.”

Skating, like marriage, is a lifetime commitment for a lot of the Tuesday night crowd .

“Skating is a part of me,” he said 78-year-old Percy Moorman of Eagle Rock. “When my wife was killed in 1985 she said, ‘Don’t ever give up skating.’ ”

The old-timers of skating may be in the majority, but they are not the only ones who enjoy the nostalgic organ music.

“Organ music is cool,” said 14-year-old Michelle Kinnamon, who is a second-generation skater at Dominic’s. “We listen to the other kinds of music during the week. Why not give it a change?”

Kinnamon said she learned to skate at the age of 2 from her parents, who met at the rink.

“I know a lot of the older people and they’ve had more experiences. If I need someone to teach me a routine or to talk to I can go to them,” Kinnamon said. “They’re like a second family.”

When the music ends for the evening and the last group of couples skate across the floor, Grant and Potter can be seen making their way back to their car. Both men say they want to continue to skate for the rest of their lives--and maybe even after that.

“I have an agreement with my wife that when I die she puts my skates on me so nobody else will get them,” Grant said with a smile.

Potter agreed. “I want mine to go with me in the hereafter so I can skate there too.”