I don’t know why I was rummaging around in the garage that winter day. Maybe I had climbed the cut out steps in the wall that separated the garage from the bunkhouse and messed around in my hideout in the space below the rafters. Or perhaps I had simply moved an old coat or pair of chaps that hung on a nail, and uncovered my treasure; a pair of men’s hockey skates with rust on the blades, and so many scuffs that I was unsure if they were truly black. I carried them to the house and found Mom in the kitchen.
“Where did these come from?”
“Oh, those were my brother’s. Vance used them a lot. I don’t know what in the world they are doing here on the ranch.”
“Can I have them?”
“Sure, but where will you skate?”
“There’s plenty of ice on the creek in the meadow,” I said, on my way out the door.
The skates were too large for me, but I stuffed old socks in the toes, and wore two pair on my feet. The tops were no longer stiff, and my ankles turned a lot, but gradually, I learned to pick my way among the rough places where weeds grew through the ice and stay up-right—mostly.
By the time Mom and I lived in Seneca so I could attend high school, the skates fit fine and I packed cardboard along my ankles for support. There’s a small lake at the edge of that village, where most winter nights, a crew of kids gathered to skate. It wasn’t a planned event; you just showed up after supper to see who was around. If there wasn’t moon enough to see by, some of the boys gathered old tires and set them ablaze. Not all the kids could afford skates; some just slid on their shoes. The lake had springs at one end, but we all knew to avoid the thin ice. I don’t know what would have happened if someone had been careless, because as far as I know, nobody ever brought a rope.
I’d gotten pretty proficient by then, but not as good as my friend, Helen, who was a natural athlete, and could skate backwards and do spins. She had figure skates, and I was sure they made all the difference. Helen was generally the one at the head of crack the whip, or choosing a partner to skate double. We had our share of tumbles, but they were part of the fun. Until the night that Neil was at the end of crack the whip, and fell extra hard on his head. When he got up, which took a while, he didn’t know where he was, or why. Some of us walked him home and told his mom what happened, but nobody got scolded, and he was back in school the next day.
After high school, the gatherings ended, but I remembered what fun it had been. As my kids grew up, we made sure they had skates, and they practiced on the creek just as I had. There were complaints when the boys grew into their sister’s size and had to wear white “girl’s skates,” but they went unheard, For Pete’s sake, we couldn’t afford new ones every year! I don’t recall who used Vance’s skates, but surely someone had to, at some point.
One Christmas, my husband gave me my first pair of white figure skates, and I was off and running again. The kids’ country school occasionally had skating parties on the bayou at the edge of Brownlee. Parents furnished hot chocolate and marshmallows for roasting. Our family and the neighbors got together at a windmill overflow in someone’s pasture, a meadow pond, or Swan Lake. The dads got in the act too, although I believe they sometimes lurked just outside the firelight to partake of something a little more exotic than hot chocolate.
One New Year’s Eve, we had planned to meet the Merz family to skate on a pond in our meadow. The night before, six inches of fluffy new snow covered everything, but the day was calm and mild, so the kids and I cleared the ice with scoop shovels and the celebration went off as scheduled, enhanced by a full moon.
Should old acquaintance be forgot? Never. Good times, good old days and nights.
I don’t know where the skates have got to. We probably gave them away, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, years from now, someone unearthed that old pair of Uncle Vance’s in a dark corner of some outbuilding, and they’ll never know the stories those skates could tell.