Skating Is Fun? - Part 1

November 1962 -  Feel The Pain

Learning to balance on eight wheels sounds difficult to a first-timer but it really wasn't. My older brother and I were roller skating together since I was five, both outside and inside of the apartment project. After learning to travel over stones and bumpy concrete outside and rarely falling, my need for Iodine and bandages became less and less over the years. Indoor skating was different though. As we rolled through the hallways of the apartment, mom and dad would pretty much start screaming but what was a couple of young boys supposed to do when there is all that open floor tile and linoleum?

My first set of skates were the ones with straps and clamps on the front. They would grab around my sneakers and I had to tighten the clamps up with the skate key. At times, the skates would slip off because kids are always in a hurry and the science of these moving platforms was just too simple.

All this simplicity changed when the time came for me to learn to ice skate. My short history with these types of skates only spanned over one season, during the winter of 1962. I was nine years old and my father thought it would be a great activity for the growing boys to take what they had learned and apply those skills to a frozen surface. He took us to a sporting goods store and we all got our own brand new skates. Very easy to walk in while at the store, so let's go skating!!

Imagine what used to be called the Wollman Memorial Skating Rink in Central Park (since 1987, it's been called the Trump Wollman Memorial Skating Rink, after the reconstruction).  That crisp November in '62 it was still early but there were others already on the ice.

We sat on a bench lacing up our shoes with the magic metal blades on them. It was cold outside and I quickly wanted to get to skating to warm up. My father could see that my brother and I were obviously impatient.

"Lace them up tight" my father said sternly to my brother and I.
"You boys don't want to get hurt."

I followed my father and brother unto the ice and found this to be a totally different experience then roller skating. Regardless of me holding on to the support areas on the sides, I still found a way to fall on my butt. Not only was I cold but now my knees, gloves and butt were wet. This was not enjoyable. My father patiently stood next to me as I pulled myself together. It was difficult to stand and keep the blades perpendicular to the ground but I forced them to straighten out.

I looked across the ice and saw my brother actually making progress. He had already fallen and gotten up quite a few times but now he was ice skating. That was it. I was going to to learn if it killed me.

I finally did bend my knees and began to move myself forward but it was at a price. It seems that the pressure that I exerted on the muscle along the exterior portion of my right leg between my ankle and knee became increasingly sore as I forced my shoe to straighten. Seems like my thin ankles did not want do what everyone else s did. I sat down a few times, hoping this would relieve some of the pressure but when I got back up on the ice, it got worst.

My father and brother re-tightened my laces, gave me pointers and encouraged me as much as possible but my ankle was not listening. I was in too much pain. After one more try, I sat gloomily and watched my brother and father while they moved around the rink with increasing agility.

Next weekend, we returned to the rink with thicker socks for support but it made no difference. Once we returned home, that was the end of my illustrious career as an ice skater.

To be continued .......


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My Kingdom For A Canvas

Paper is Sometimes Better - March 1959

Finding a way to color my world always made sense to me, even at five years old. I found out at an early age that not everyone could take the pictures in their head, pick up a pencil and then put that picture on the paper. I thought about this ego-boost as I watched my first grade class during our trip to the Coca-Cola company. That's me and my mother in the photo. I was such a cute little idiot. How could I possibly imagine the terror  that I was about to evoke.

 

Back at the classroom, I had gotten used to my teacher complimenting me whenever it was finger painting time. My view of things was that she enjoyed my works of art. Her praise more likely stemmed from the fact that I didn't make as big a mess as the other kids. Regardless, I must have made an impression on Mrs. Clark because she decided to present me with a shoebox full of crayons.

These days, kids would accept nothing less than a computerized multi-colored marker system but back in the day, things were a lot simpler. That box of whole and broken crayons represented ideas on a stick which I had not yet imagined. I shyly said thank you to my teacher and when my mother picked me up, I walked home grinning with the box under my arm.

As I sat on my bed, scribbling away on the paper that my mother had given me, I felt a sense of discontent. Didn't she know that I was given this gift because I was an ARTIST? Could she not see that my soul was tormented and these minuscule sheets of paper could not give relief to my distress? I'd seen beautifully large paintings and I craved for space so that I could express my inner feelings. And then suddenly it hit me. The WALL! The largest canvas that I could have possibly wished for. The wall next to my bed spoke to me and my crayons and I had to answer.

The surface was bumpy and it made drawing my straight lines a bit more difficult but that was okay. I now had the area I needed to draw really pretty pictures (I mean, works of art). I happily kept expanding my work because, why not? I had lots of space.

After about fifteen minutes of drawing, I guess I was being too quiet because my mother came in the bedroom to check on me. She raised her voice talking about getting this stuff off the wall before my father got home. Most of what she said is lost to my memory but two things I do remember clearly. One was that it's difficult for me to clean the crayon off of a wall even with soap and water and two, I cried while I was doing it. I understood why my mother said my work couldn't be on the wall but I don't think she understood my point of view.

This experience did not stop my creative flow but it was clear what the bigger issue really was. There will always be critics.

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