As the winter wore on, the days got colder and colder until the little pond next to our house became frozen.

What an opportunity for ice skating! Or so I thought. My wife still had her white ice skates in their original box in the attic. But I had to search for mine - if I still had them. It had been a long time since we last went skating. And even then, I could barely glide around on the ice. But that wasn't the case when I was 14. Back then, I was no expert, but at least I could do laps around the pond - a much larger pond than the one we have now.

The pond back then was more than a mile from my childhood home. I usually met with a friend or two at the little brick building next to the pond. The ice house, as we called it, was built during the Great Depression as part of the WPA project. It had a concrete floor and long wooden benches where you would sit and carefully lace your skates. There was a fireplace on one side of the building with a cozy fire.

The "ice house" today

Once we had securely laced our skates over an extra pair of wool socks, we ventured onto the pond. We gingerly made our way around, picking up more speed with every lap, carefully avoiding contact with anyone going too fast or too slow. We were also careful to avoid the thin ice, as forewarned by the wooden barricades around the fringes.

All the while, music blasted from the loudspeaker on the roof of the ice house. Whoever was in charge of the music played all the hit tunes of the day from the late 1960s. We skated to the sounds of Steppenwolf, The Monkees, The Buckinghams, and other pop bands. The tunes motivated me to keep moving, almost dancing, on the ice. I said, "almost dancing." I couldn't ever do anything fancy like skating backward, but at least I went along a decent pace.

But that was then, and this is now. That was in 1968, and now I'm 68! Unlike riding a bicycle, which they say you can never forget, I did forget how to ice skate. And I have no intention of trying to remember. Well, maybe a little, if I could find my skates. At least I could give it a whirl on our tiny pond, barely big enough to move around. And no one else is there to see me fall on my backside - assuming I could even stand in the skates in the first place. And when I do fall, and I will, I hope I don't fall through the ice!

Our little pond

Maybe I'd need someone to help me - someone to hold on. I couldn't ask my wife. She would be too busy skating circles around me. Besides, how embarrassing would that be? All I need is someone to give me a push... or a pull.

Me and my furry friend

Story Copyright © 2023 by Michael DeFrancesco

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