While out on a walk around the neighborhood with Mr. Maple, we spotted two elementary aged boys with hockey skates laced tight and sticks in hand. They floated around on the ice so easily, their carefree style made me smile. Their rosy red checks peaked out in between scarves wrapped high and hats pulled low. The crack of the hockey sticks echoed in the neighborhood, followed by shrieks of joy and calls for penalties.
They can keep the ice all to themselves, I won’t ever make them share it.
My short-lived career as a skater started as a toddler when I watched an ice skating competition on television. I wanted a pair of skates so I could twirl and jump on the ice, just like on TV. I got white figure skates with bright red laces for Christmas and even slept with them near my pillow, but my scene on the ice was not scripted well.
After a few good falls, I found out that those professional skaters train for hours every day. Once I heard that out it became clear that I really only liked the bling of their cool costumes.
I retired – for about 18 years.
A few times in college and shortly after, I took my adult-sized figure skates in to have the rust grinded off them and I would convince friends to skate with me. Sometimes the skating involved a friendly game of hockey and sometimes it involved taking visitors out for a cultural experience.
It’s been years since my last outing and it became very clear, very quickly that I had fallen out of practice with ice, movement and general every day balance.
After finishing a meeting on a college campus, I stepped onto the slippery sidewalks. Students scurried about, to and from class, and as I rounded a corner on the sidewalk, I stepped just right.
The last thing I saw was my boot lifted high – right to eye level – and the next thing I felt was the back of my head introducing itself to the cold concrete with a few impressive bounces. In the skating world there is a name for the move I landed – a wipeout (at least it wasn’t a “face plant.”)
I felt stares from young members of Generation Y and I knew I couldn’t just lie there in pain; my instinct informed me that I had to stand up. I came face to face with a young couple that had witnessed the whole thing, the girl looked at me with shock in her expression.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I got up, brushed myself off and slowly started putting one foot in front of the other.
“Yes,” I managed. “Be careful – it’s slippery out here.”
The next morning, my back and neck yelled and screamed at me for what I had done to them.
“You don’t bounce back like you used to!” they taunted.
It took three trips to the chiropractor to snap, crackle and pop everything back where it belonged. That meant a week of ooos and owws, over the counter painkillers and all out whining.
I avoid ice now even more than when I retired from skating the first time. At least back then the ground wasn’t so far away.