Yes, Eddy Matzger falls!  On purpose.  On the grass?  No!  On the blacktop.  And he rolls and rolls, unhurt.

     Last Monday morning Eddy rolled into Timber Lane School, a Fairfax County school, with his helmet on, a sponsor t-shirt, shorts, and skates.  He was there as an ambassador for the thing that makes him tick, inline skating.

     The first group, a group of second graders filed on to the playground blacktop under an unusually hot spring morning sun.  The kids were enthusiastic as Eddy got them involved.  "What countries have you visited?" "What countries are you from?" And "what other languages do you speak?"  Then he began to tell them a few of his skating adventures in other countries.

     Hey wait a minute.  Here's a grown man dressed in a bike helmet , a  t-shirt, shorts, and on inline skates, talking to school children who are out of class  during normal school hours.  What gives?

     Eddy explained that in addition to entering races he was a teacher, teaching people to skate.  It was then that Eddy shared with the kids a priceless jewel of truth. "Do you like art?"  Do you like music, science, whatever?  Find something you like and get good at it.  It will make you happy and other people happy, throughout your life.?

     Okay. So where does the falling and rolling come in?  The teacher asks Eddy if he would talk to the kids about motion.  They were beginning to study some basics of Physics.  Physics in the second grade?!  So after demonstrating on skates the ideas of force, inertia, and friction, and the importance of wearing a helmet, Eddy tells a story.

To graduate from college, he needed one more credit.  So he took gymnastics.  And that's where he learned to fall and roll.

     Ready or not, he winds up and the next thing you see is that grown man falling on the blacktop, arms outstretched over and above his ears, rolling, rolling, then back up on skates.  Shock and awe?  You bet.

     A day the kids, even the more skeptical fifth graders, will not forget.  And for you WARriors who have been around awhile, an interesting coincidence.  The contact teacher at Timber Lane School was Elizabeth Shuba.  As Elizabeth led Eddie, Carol Patch, and me down the hall to the backyard playground, I asked Elizabeth, "Are you any kin to a skater named Lou Shuba?"
  "Indeed."  He's my brother!" -- Jim Dillard