Skating on Thick Ice

Every winter, all the neighbourhood kids would wait impatiently for the news that the ice of Lily Lake was thick enough to skate on. Once that news came, we had hours and hours of free fun and outdoor exercise for weeks on end.
 
We often went skating after school when the rink was virtually empty. Lots of room for flying along, cracking the whip and practicing spins and fancy stops. We spun and flew until it was dark and time to go home, reluctantly, for supper.

(Wordsworth, in The Prelude, Book First, evokes the cold, the sounds, and the motion of skating far better than I can. Sir Ian McKellen reads the skating epidsode.)

On sunny Sunday afternoons, what seemed like hundreds filled the rink with laughter and the ring of steel skates. Toddlers, teens, couples, whole families went round and round to the tinny sound of the Skater's Waltz, played from the pavilion.

	Waldteufel, Emile - Skater's Waltz .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

I was always fascinated by the couples, skating  rhythmically side to side, with arms linked, laughed fondly at the toddlers walking in their first skates, and avoided the boys who flashed past nearly knocking us down.

When I was a teenager, evening skating parties were popular. On a Saturday night, the music was more contemporary and our outfits probably more important than our skating. After the skating, we would go to a house party, always with hot chocolate and something warm to eat, maybe chili or chowder. And though I'm sure there was the odd beer or whiskey flask around, they really were simpler, less complicated times.

Flying exhilaration, strenuous exercise, laughter, rosy cheeks and hot chocolate all form an important part of my winter memories from home.


Lily Lake is in the Rockwood Park in the midst of Saint John, New Brunswick, and most fortunately, was a ten-minute walk from my childhood home.