One Man's Skating Pond

When my children were young we homeschooled. Winter sports activities were limited when you had no Gymnasium, so we improvised. As I was drinking my morning Tequila and getting ready for a dull day of reading, writing, and arithmetic, I spied a shiny ribbon of ice, nestled in a wooded area just beyond our yard, in no man's land.

I let the kids sleep in. (I needed more Tequila before they awoke.) I bundled up and, after grabbing a shovel, trudged through the thigh-high snow to find this miracle, right in our own backyard. With a bit of shoveling, we would have our own private skating rink. The kids had both gotten ice skates for Christmas and hadn't tried them out.

Against my better judgment, I woke the kids up and told them to get dressed for outdoors after breakfast. I made them put their skates on before hiking to "our pond." After much grumbling, they followed me to their first ice skating lesson.

Sam was a natural and picked up skating as quickly as he learned everything else. Soon, he was buzzing Sara and me, as I held her arms and tried to convince her not to skate on her ankles. What a glorious bonding time we shared, every chance we got, that magical Winter.

In the Spring, it was Sam, who noticed the laundry detergent smell in the melting ice and the brown bobbing blobs poking through the cracks.

Our Skating rink was someone else's rural sewer system...