Ice Skating Rink

So....Riverhead is considering building an outdoor ice skating rink, eh? A nicely designed rink with smooth ice.... that’s not real ice skating. Real ice skating is a brutal physical and emotional experience.

I remember it well, ice skating as a teen on the Island. First off, no rinks. Rinks are for amateurs, babies, tourists. We skated on patches of lumpy ice off any shallow spot around the Island. Lumpy ice with frozen tuffs of sea grass jutting out, reaching out to hook your skate and make you fall flat on your face. That’s Island style, baby.

First, you try to bundle up against the cold before you leave the house. But nothing, not even anything from L.L.Bean’s page for sub-zero weather, can completely protect you from the bitter cold winds that whip around the edges of the Island. The winds hit your face like a cheese grater at 50 miles an hour. And the sting....the sting keeps you from crying because the wind would freeze your tears on your face. Next, find your skates. Then, the most important thing was laces. You didn’t want laces to break out there in the cold, so like any self respecting bratty child, you steal your father’s rawhide shoelaces from his work boots - you know they won’t break. In our house, you had to move fast to get first dibs on the rawhide laces. Lastly, food supplies. A can of soda and a sandwich. The can went into one jacket pocket and the sandwich went into another. And when it was time to eat, we all pulled out flattened, densely compressed tuna sandwiches.

In my youth, we had to walk everywhere because your parents only drove you to school and medical appointments. No one worried about their children being kidnapped, because, as my mother put it, “What person, in their right mind, would want you’s?” So, off we went, sandwiches in pockets, holding dangling skates away from our bodies so the blades didn’t gouge our legs, scarves wrapped up to our eyes.

Once at the ice, we sat on frozen sand and put on skates, then wobbled to the ice. You had to be real careful for the first few steps as you navigated around the lumpy sea grass and got out to the clear areas.

There was a strict stratification of skaters. First, the Chickens; they either sat on the shore and made snide comments, or poorly skated the lumpy perimeter. They fell all the time and screamed everytime they fell. All screams were ignored because chickens deserved to feel pain. I often wonder if the term, “fringe group” came from the Chicken skaters. Next was the Smart Group. This group skated in the smooth, safe areas only. This was where most of the girls were. I was in this group as soon as I could skate well enough to get out of the Chicken group. Last, the Edgers, the edge of the ice seemed to be an exclusively male domain. The Edgers were fools who skated as close to the end of the ice as they could, and inevitably, somebody would punch through. If someone fell in, that would be the end of the skating day because somebody had to run to the nearest house and ask them to call the wet fool’s parents for pick-up. I oftern wonder if the term, “I pity the fool,” came from this skating misfortune, because no guy, no matter how macho, can look tough when he is A) soaking wet and shaking with cold B) being yelled at by his parent as they wrap blankets around him and shove him in the car.

After two hours of skating, or the first fall-in, which ever came first, we all sat down and ate our squashed sandwiches. After that, there was always a group consensus that we were tired of all the fun we were having and it was time to head home. We’d come home with bright red cheeks that would hurt for hours as they warmed up. Mothers were usually home in that time, and tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches would appear like magic along with a game board or puzzle of some kind. There were only four TV channels available then; CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS and there was a law in every household about not being allowed to watch TV during the day unless you were sick. So, we all played games, not video games, but games like Scrabble or Parcheesi, which required talking to other people.

I never skated after high school, without the peer pressure, I was able to ascertain that if it had to be cold enough outside to freeze water, it was going to be too cold for comfort. I play Scrabble on my iPad now, and although I like it very much, I’ll really like it when Apple makes a Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese app.