In 6th grade I had a kind of boyfriend. I did not "date" but there was a boy in my class who always picked me as his partner when we did square dancing for PE. We would meet at the skating rink and he would grab my waist from behind and push me around the rink. It was thrilling. He could skate much faster than I could and I remember flying around the rink, exhilarated by the speed and the fact that a boy had his hands around my waist. Unfortunately he eventually dumped me for the minister's daughter at my church. Skating was never the same after that. I tried skating once as an adult and time did not improve my skills. I still couldn't do crossover turns or skate backwards and my forward progress was even worse than it was when I was a kid. It's fun to remember the "good old days" at the skating rink, however, so I am glad I saw that Hockey store even though I had no desire to go in and check out the skates. ![]() I was exploring a shopping center near the apartment complex where my sister lives and they had an entire store devoted to Hockey. You don't find this kind of store in California where I live. It would be very weird to see a Hockey store next to the O'Neils surf shop, so it had a big impact on me. It reminded me that I actually used to live in a land of ice and snow. ![]() The few times I have been back to the Midwest in the winter, all I could think of was how unbelievably cold it was, but at one time in my life I barely noticed the cold. When I was a kid we were always outside playing in the snow. Skating was THE big social activity in the winter. All the girls had white figure skates and all the boys had Hockey skates. It would not have been cool for anyone to go against this tradition. For a boy to wear figure skates or a girl to wear Hockey skates would have been social suicide in 6th grade. In the winter every neighborhood park was a skating rink. They flooded what were the baseball fields in the summer. Our rink had a warming house with ramps going down onto the rink. You could glide easily to get down, but you had to work up some speed to get enough momentum to get up the ramp. There were wooden benches on the inside of the warming house that were ravaged by years of people slamming their skates into them. When we got too cold we would go into the warming house and pull on each other's skate runners to get the circulation back in our feet. Evidently there were snacks available because my sister remembers buying her favorite, Milk Duds. I am not athletically inclined and skating was no exception. I admired the kids who could whisk along doing crossover turns and skating backwards. I was lucky just to be able to make forward progress as I followed the crowd around the rink. It was like roller skating only a lot colder. The music playing through a loud speaker signaled everyone to change directions.
1 Comment
Linda Mason Pace
8/27/2015 07:54:53 am
So who was this boyfriend that I never heard about? Or is this a senior moment and it will come to me like my memory of Milk Duds? Interesting that I remember a five cent snack but not a person! Also interesting is the fact this keyboard has a dollar sign but no cent sign. Bet the Milk Duds are over a dollar a box now.
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Leslie Masona woman in search of her post-retirement future Guess what! By subscribing, you get notices about the latest Little Old Lady with Cats posts sent to your mailbox!
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