The thing about ice

Seems like all it takes is the sound of a shovel or skates scraping an ice surface out-of-doors and I time-travel: winters of youth when you dared to hitch a ride behind the bumper of a car; took bets from friends while in your head, you heard your mother’s voice telling you not to put your tongue on freezing metal; played shinny out in the middle of the street with the kids on the block and where, now and then, a truck came by and smooshed the ice chunkscum- goal-posts. Responsibility to replace them fell in the lap of our female goalie, brutes that we were. We scouted the roof eaves for icicles, the ones that were as tall as a rifle you packed onto your shoulder. And through it all, my mother reminded me to always wear my best underwear in case I ever landed in the hospital.

Then there were the snow forts and castle hideouts, toboggan and sleigh runs and, inevitably the snowman (gender-neutral) that held guard at every corner, wearing someone else’s wool scarf. No, I didn’t do the three-mile walk to school in blizzards with 10 feet of snow thing; my trip was a 20-city-block pilgrimage through a measly three feet of the stuff mixed with road salt and sand.

A lot of this imagery refills my memory jar on a Friday evening as I watch a group of neighbouhood kids skate on the outdoor rink along Main Street in Wellington. The idea of lacing up skates while sitting on an outdoor bench, freezing your butt off as rink lights shower pools of light onto a pocket of ice that rings under the starlit heavens is what I like to term “quelques chose ancienne village”—a reminder of the warmth of simple pleasures.

I wasn’t big on hockey back then. It seemed as if any puck launched by a stick in the hands of an opposing player had a magnetic attraction to my head. That aside, skating was a good thing. I looked forward to the very cold days when, in my backyard, I would hammer down the snow with a shovel once used in a grain elevator in Montmartre, Saskatchewan. I had never seen such a broad scoop before I inherited the thing.

My rinks liked to follow around trees and hedges, and generally took on the path of a winter maze. Dragging the hose out from the basement night after frigid night, and applying coat upon coat of ice was, in itself, less than onerous. To witness the water spill onto the surface and the steam lift off the rink in the haze of the porch light was a magical affair. More inspiring, I seem to recall, than squirming at my wooden desk indoors while taking a shot at school homework: now that I reminisce and consider my well-practiced ice savvy, I wonder why I overlooked the chance on my aptitude tests to put a check mark beside the job of fulltime ice-care team member that was on the list of potential careers. Hell, the chance may yet arrive. The Wellington rink has its own Zamboni. By the way, Suzanne, our goaltender, became a dentist after her youthful experience of losing three front teeth while building her skills in the net.

Winter was about wet woollen mitts and toques hanging over the heat register; drying and then drying and then drying again our boot liners once more. It was about chapped lips and near-frostbitten toes and faces. It was also about splitting and stacking firewood or waiting for the coal delivery. I’m told by Larry at the hardware store that at the end of West Street, the next block over from where I stand, was the coal yard. The train came in and dumped coal into a chute and folks from town would come with sacks and pay at the office shack for as much as they could carry on their backs to feed the furnaces that huffed and groaned in the basements of Wellington. Come to think of it, just try and buy enough coal for the buttons of three snow persons nowadays and you’ll find the stuff as rare as pork belly futures.

And so, all of the above has been prompted by the sound of skates on ice. While it doesn’t appeal to dwell on the past, I claim it is the atmosphere of the senses that seems to draw images in my mind that are not just ol’ guy stories. And if only they’d give me a turn behind the wheel of that spanking new Zamboni over there, my life would be complete.