OXFORD – “I’m shaking up my whole world and starting over with a clean slate,” Pat Gott said after selling her Route 26 roller rink.
The Paris resident officially sold Motion 26 to Todd Truman of Truman Corp. and is preparing to spend a month volunteering in Tanzania.
Gott said Truman intends to close the business, and if nobody comes forward to manage it by spring, he will renovate the building into office space.
Gott started her business 24 years ago. She said she began to look for a niche to fill in the community when word spread through her workplace that employees “should start to look for other jobs.” Although Gott herself was not a roller skater, it seemed to her that her 11-year-old son and other area children needed a roller rink.
She purchased a dance hall on Route 26 and converted the building into a roller rink.
Gott said the first night she was open, 212 people crowded into the building to skate. She had to lock the door to keep the kids waiting outside from coming in.
She continued to hold BYOB dances in the building for the first few years to help pay the bills. She said hundreds of kids came through her doors, but when a movie theater came to the area, she lost the older group.
A roller rink closer to the Norway/Paris area would do well, Gott believes. She hopes someone will decide to open one, and would be willing to offer advice. She suggests the Hancock Lumber building, the former Ames store, and the empty department store space in the Cornwall Plaza as excellent sites for roller skating.
Any aspiring roller rink managers who want Gott’s advice should act fast, though. In November she leaves for Tanzania, where she will spend the month volunteering with Cross Cultural Solutions. Gott said her volunteer work in Africa may include working with orphans and homeless children who may have AIDS, or teaching English in primary or secondary schools.
“I’ve lived a really good life, and it’s time to give something back,” Gott said. While she’s in Tanzania she also hopes to have a chance to do some hiking or horseback riding on Mount Kilimanjaro.
Gott has already ridden horses on four of the seven continents. Now that she doesn’t own a business, she hopes to add Asia and South America to the list.
“Life’s an adventure,” Gott said. “The world is full of things to do.”
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