Grumpa Joe's Place

ICE SKATING

            Winter was always fun when we could get out to play.  When the snow came,  we spent our time making snow men, forts, or igloos.  We also tossed snowballs at each other. I have to confess that I never really finished an igloo.  The closest I came was to  build walls then put boards over the top to make a roof, and piled snow on top of the boards to make it look like an official igloo.

When the temperature dropped into the twenty’s, Father Horvath the pastor of Our Lady of Hungary parish, had the school yard flooded to make a skating area.  Kids came from all around to go skating.  I begged to borrow skates so I could join in.  Typically, the skates I used were too large for my feet, and my ankles bent out.  People told me that “my ankles aren’t strong enough.”  Years later, I learned that a loosely fit skate causes the ankle to bend. In order to keep ankles from bending out, the skate shoe must fit snugly.

Sometimes I had hockey-skates, sometimes figure-skates, but never racing-skates.  I fell in love with the idea of figure skating, and dreamed that I was a great figure skater. The truth is that I didn’t know where to start.  I read a lot of books about figure skating. Figure skaters use special skates with a curved blade.  Most of the time I owned hockey skates.