Do-overs

In my next life, more than anything I’d like to be able to ice skate, just like Hans Brinker.  There aren’t any canals a la Holland in these parts, but there’s a long tradition of skating on park lagoons.  I’d like to think I could read the sign and avoid any thin ice.

But in this life the best I could do was walk upright on my skates at an ice rink during a class outing in eighth grade.  An unnamed acquaintance of longstanding couldn’t even manage that; it was more ankle scraping than anything.  Then there was the time a whole bunch of us played hockey in the alley.  Nobody wore skates, everybody swung their sticks.  Bob thought he was a lumberjack.  Talk about bloodlust.

Would I also want to be able to swim?  I don’t know.  There are probably too many unpleasant memories to overcome.  Let me put it this way—I was born a rock in human form.  Around the time I was nine, the doctor told my mother swimming would be good for my asthma, so off to the Y we went for lessons; whatever they were paying the instructors wasn’t nearly enough with me in the pool, usually on my way to the bottom.  So, of course when the lessons were over, my mother signed me up for more.

The result of this water torture is that I did learn how to swim, sort of.  If the boat or plane goes down 20-40 feet from shore, I’m good; otherwise, we’re talking recovery, not rescue.  The good news, though, is that our one and only did not inherit her father’s lack of ability on the ice or in the water.  Clare skates just fine, and she was asked to join a swim club years before she made her first travel team.

But the old man can parallel park circles around her.