Skating in Presque Isle
To the editor:
The earliest memory of my grandfather, “Puppy,” as I liked to call him, was when he got me these five-bladed things you strapped to your boots and said I was going to learn to skate. I was 3 years old and had no fears.
The next year I graduated to used, doubled-bladed skates and the year after that for Christmas I got my first pair of white single-blade skates. I can still smell the leather and remember how hard that leather was at first. I used those skates so much that the following year they had very little support left to them.
You see I lived 50 yards from the outdoor skating rink (Chapman Street) and I loved everything about it: the smell of burning coal, the ice rink, the music, the wooden plank you had to walk up to get in the shack. I can still hear my skate blades hitting the wood as I walked up that plank knowing that warmth was just a few steps away. Inside were long wooden benches with all kinds of skates hanging above them. Cushman (the rink manager) would tell us to take our skates home with us but I never listened, this was my home away from home. I was the first person on the ice when they opened and the last one off when they closed. Even when they closed because of bad weather I got the boy next door to shovel a path ahead of me so I could skate.
Night skating was the best. I would look up at the stars and imagine myself all alone on the ice. It was like heaven until I bumped into someone. I had a lot of bumps and bruises over those years. I was a speed skater and felt like the wind going around and around the rink as fast as I could.
One year during February break they had racing competitions for the older kids. I fibbed and said I was older than I was to compete. I came in second, got a silver medal and my picture in The Star-Herald with no one knowing I was a couple of years younger than the other girls. No one at home knew or cared about my medal, but that was quite all right, I did it for myself, to prove to myself that I was as good as I thought I was.
I loved the skating rink. It taught me so many things that have helped me through my life and this time of year always brings back those wonderful memories.
Susanne Thompson Hay
Mapleton
