Skating Through
I’m not sure how the word skating ever got associated with
the concept of things coming easy for someone – “He sure skated through that,
didn’t he?” Skating never came easy for
me, well almost never.
The worst for me was ice skating. Unfortunately, as the youngest, every winter
I was expected to sort through the box of hand-me-down skates from my older
brothers in the basement to find a pair that fit best that winter. Of course, there was never a pair of skates
that fit perfectly; but there was a pair that was close enough. That might mean that my toes were a bit
squished, or that I had to put on an extra pair of heavy wool sox so that my
feet didn’t slide around too much.
Perhaps that’s why I usually spent more time in the warming shelter
than I did on the ice rink. Even so, I
did manage to maneuver ever so tenuously around the rink a number of
times. I had to stay on the far outside
edge of rink because if I did manage to gather any kind of forward momentum, I
needed to step into the snowbank to stop; I never learned any other way.
I had a little better luck with roller skates. I remember one year that I received a pair of
metal skates for my birthday that came very early in April. They slipped over my tennis shoes and you
could adjust them to the correct length.
That was much closer to a correct fit than I ever had with ice skates.
Even though it should have been much easier to balance on
four wheels than a single blade, when I first tried to stand up on them anyone
watching me could have correctly quoted Thumper as he watched the newborn Bambi
struggle to gain his first balance, “Kind of wobbly, isn’t he?” I stepped back onto the lawn to steady
myself, just like I used the snowbank in winter.
However, I remember well the Sunday evening that everything
came together for me. I know that it was
a Sunday because my mother called out to let me know that Bonanza was coming on
in a few minutes. But Hoss and Little
Joe were just going to have to handle this week’s problems by themselves,
because I was bound and determined to master those roller skates.
The sidewalk only went one house farther going one way, but
I could skate all the way to the corner in the other direction. Back and forth I went, gaining speed and
confidence with each lap. After about a
half hour I was feeling pretty good about my progress, so instead of stepping
of the sidewalk to turn around, I instinctively extended my left foot outward
and I successfully spun around and headed back.
My new-found ability to turn around on the go was exhilarating. I skated back and forth until it was dark and
my mother was calling me to come inside.
My excitement lasted just like the vibrating feeling in my
legs after spending the entire evening skating on those metal wheels on the
concrete sidewalk. That summer I spent
hours skating. It was becoming something
I was good at. But my skating career ended
before the long summer evenings. One of
the wheels of my skate came apart at the bearing. My skates found their way into the garbage
bin. By the next spring my interests
must have moved on because I never did get another pair of roller skates. Life goes on, and some things get left
behind. I guess it’s called ‘growing up’.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
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