As year-end reviews inundated us with visions of 1988, the one picture I swear I saw more than any other was that of Elizabeth Manley doing her silver-medal thing in Calgary.

All the looking back has of course got me looking back too, to the times when I dreamt of being able to skate. Or even make it around a skating rink just once without making a fool of myself.

My brother took skating lessons for a while at the Oakville Arena on Rebecca, the one that burnt down last year. My mother was chauffeur and I sometimes tagged along when she picked him up. There was a special mystique about the arena, a smell of coldness and sweat, of the hollowness of space around the rink, of the hard work that led to grace and skill on ice.

There was the same sort of aura at the Kinoak Arena on Warminster Drive. I went there a few times when I was older, with my brothers or with friends. They skated while I hobbled along, afraid to let go of the sideboards. It was there, however, that I discovered the part I liked best about skating: lacing up. I loved those little hooks at the top of the boot, back in the days before Velcro. In fact, I think I probably laced and unlaced several times a boot, just for the thrill of it. I sat on the wooden benches that rimmed the rink, the ice itself a thick white. After skating, we put on bright orange blade protectors and walked, feeling very tall, to the change room, or over hard crunching snow to our parents’ waiting car.

Often, though, the outdoor rinks were more fun. A few times, we tried to freeze part of our yard, small, bumpy circles that usually melted within a couple of days.

The very best skating rink was a frozen pond. On Lakeshore Rd. near Burloak Drive, there used to be a golf course, and at one time there was a little pond. Possibly it served as a water hazard during the golfing season. But in the winter it froze over, making a nice rink, just the right size for a dozen or so skaters. I liked it especially because it was a family time, and there was never a crowd to see me fall. Sometimes there were other skaters there, but never too many.

But somewhere along the line, we stopped going. Possibly we kids got too grown up to go skating with the folks, although we often said in the spirit of a moment that we would like to go there again. And then suddenly one year the golf course was gone, the pond was gone. There were deep ruts of mud and a model home. It was sad, of course, but inevitable, and after all, we had no claim to the land, had not gone there for years.

Two or three years ago, I spotted another potential skating spot. It was a place that was once an orchard, on Third Line just south of Upper Middle Road. The day was bright and cold, and as I drove by I saw an amazingly smooth patch of ice. And I thought maybe I would try the skates on again, go back to the little patch. But it was rather close to the road, and I thought it would be best for me to wait until dusk, or mid-day when there would be little traffic. So I put it off again and again, although I drove past the spot several times on my way to other places. Then spring came, and summer and fall, and by the next skating season, there was a whole new road there, pavement over my plans of a moonlit skate. So all I have are dreams of white boots with the silver blades, gliding flawlessly on a glassy patch of ice in an isolated field.

Judy Wedeles
January 12 1989, Oakville Today