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Years ago, when Honey and I first started taking our little children to skate on Miller pond, my mother Ol' Food, fearful of losing those precious and long-awaited grandchildren, would send my father to stand on the dock with a rope in his hand.
Paw-paw, a lonely sentinel, would stand there while we skated, until the combination of the cold sinking into his bones and our failure to fall through the ice convinced him it was time to take his rope and trudge through drifted snow back to the farmhouse.
Honey and I both were given new skates by our parents and learned to ice skate as teenagers. We must have skated on Miller pond when we were dating, though neither of us has a clear memory of it. We do remember taking our skates with us to Oklahoma after we were married because we took pictures of ourselves skating on Theta Pond at Oklahoma State University, where Honey would earn her veterinary medical degree.
When we moved back to the farm, we skated on the pond whenever the weather would cooperate. This not being Minnesota, we don't have a nicely frozen pond all winter. We're lucky to get one skating day each year. Neither do all those who come have skates. We began collecting skates of all sizes, from tiny double-runner strap-ons for tots to men's size 13 or better. We find them at yard sales for five bucks; new ones in the box for 10. Ice skating is one of the things around here that people give up without much of a struggle.
I've related our ice skating stories often in this column over the years.
Like the time the two preachers showed up after church, still in their dress shoes, and were persuaded to step out onto the ice with a big skating party in progress. Suddenly a loud report like a thunderclap sounded as the ice under their feet cracked, a visible fracture appearing from one side of the pond to the other. None of the skaters showed alarm. They'd been hearing cracks all day. It's a natural adjustment. The men of faith, however, slipped and slid in panic back to the bank.
I could not repress a smile as I told them, "That's just the ice saying hello."
Once, for reasons I don't recall, I made a rink on the lake at Tomlinson Run State Park. It was a Herculean effort to clear off 10 inches of snow, the ice was rough, and by the time I got my family and friends there to skate, the sun and a warm wind had turned the surface to slush. Undaunted, we skated the slush and had a ball.
On a clear, cold February evening when the ice was perfect but snowcovered, Little Worshrag was the only family member I could persuade to come skate with me. Very quickly my tot was chilled and had had enough.
"Home. Me. Now," he cried, tears wetting his red cheeks. I took him to the farmhouse and left him to Ol' Food's loving attentions, returning to finish clearing ice in hopes of rounding up a skating party the next day.
The day's light had gone when I finished. Tired, I leaned on my shovel, thinking all that work and the party might never happen. I began skating for myself, speeding around the circular track, skating figure-eights, falling, laughing aloud that I was having so much fun, a silly, middle-aged man, skating alone for an hour in the still night air, with no light to see by but the silvery rays of the crescent moon above.
My stewardship of pond skating parties has long since passed to son Seed. He is a very good skater and knows as much as I do about what it takes to get even one day of skating each winter on Miller pond ice.
Saturday was the sixth straight day of temps below freezing. The ice was three inches thick and as perfectly smooth as we'd ever seen. The Miller male work crew - grandsons Lamppost Head, The 747, The Favorite and Bob, Seed and I, spent three hours snowblowing and shoveling Friday's five inches of snow from the ice. We cleared our usual two rinks - one for hockey and one for free skating – and one big circle track. Seed put out the word on social media for a Sunday skating party.
Passers-by traveling Gas Valley Road Sunday afternoon glimpsed two dozen skaters of all ages and skill levels skating fast, falling down, waving hockey sticks, chasing pucks, eating snow and pulling tots on saucer sleds. Parents held the hands of children trying their first time on skates, boys raced each other, and experienced skaters showed off their skill. Kids not skating wore boots to play hockey and nobody cared.
Rack up one more precious day of skating on Miller pond.