Freshman Year - Part 2, Ice Skating

Intermediate Figure Skating was a blast. First of all, the whole Cayuga Ice Hockey team was in our class. They were there to learn how to skate faster and boy were they insulted. What could these prissy figure skaters teach real men hockey skaters about skating fast anyhow? Our teacher was a smallish woman that I really liked. To show them that they needed the class, we held races. We had to skate half the length of the rink and back. We were paired in twos and raced head-to-head. I turned out to be the fastest and in my final heat, I beat the captain of the hockey team. He was so mad that this little nothing of a girl could beat him. He insisted that he could do better with his stick. So I raced him with his stick, and still beat him. His friends joked that the only way he could have beat me was to trip me with the stick. But, at least he was convinced that he could learn something.

The other reason I liked it was it was so easy. I never had to learn anything I didn’t already know. We practiced three turns and tiny waltz jumps; stuff like that that I can do in my sleep. I got an A.

For me, ice skating always reminds me of my Dad. Back when mom and dad were married, we all used to go ice skating every winter weekend. After they divorced, dad used to take us kids skating on the weekends. Whenever I skate I think of him and his ice skating sweaters. He used to wear blue ones to match his eyes. I even had a dream about it.

I dreamt that my whole family was in a war and we were captured and being questioned. Our captors had pulled dad aside and were going to shoot him and he said, “One minute.” He stripped off his skating sweater and tossed it to me. “Susie. With this sweater you can save the whole family.” So I held it up to my face and cried, “How daddy?” And that was when I woke up crying into my blankets.

It is a stupid dream.

But if you think I skated fast, don’t. He skated really fast. I would be skating along at my usual pace and then dad would come swooping along and put his arm around me and we would begin to fly at his pace. He could cut through the traffic at a rink like no ones’ business. With him, my pathetic waltz jump would turn into something magnificent, so long as he held me on the landing (or surely I would land on my ass).

I had one trick that was truly mine. I could do a shoot the duck. Here is a photo of me and my dad performing one. Dad was 70 in this photo which was taken in 1995. I could also do this trick by myself. If I had a partner now, I would like to try this trick again.

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