Skater Boy - Coming of Age Story Part I
Title: Skater Boy – Coming of Age Story
Part I
In real life, you don’t know when a story is beginning. A young person tells you something they want
to do and it could get lost in the sands of time. I told my Grandma K that I wanted to build a tree house style Starship Enterprise in my backyard. She listened patiently as I went into great
detail about this project, that was never going to happen. I think I talked about this same idea for
days and she just listened. Each day we
would arrive at her house and she would make me a tuna fish sandwich and
probably took several aspirins herself:)
I also wanted to become a detective and a fireman... those never
happened either. When I was a Youth
Pastor, Jared Ingraham came up to me when he was twelve and said, “I’m going to
be a singer someday!” I said weakly,
“That’s great!” Jared couldn’t sing at
that point in his life and has dad was a genius pastor but not a soloist. There was no way this was going to
happen! But by college Jared was a very
popular singer and an incredible musician and song writer. Jared’s story still amazes me!! Sometimes adults help begin the story by
pointing out a child’s skill in a certain area and the story is about them
helping the child bring out this hidden talent or ability. Sometimes, the child has a dream no one else
can see or even believe is possible. My
son Matthew had such a dream.
Matthew walked up to me as I was sitting at the kitchen
table, working on my Sunday Morning Sermon.
“Dad?” he asked. I glance up, my
thoughts a million miles away, as I respond, “Yeah?” He said, “I want to be an Olympic figure
skater!” I blinked and sat back in my
chair staring at him. I kind of knew
what figure skating was, because my mom loved it. I remember her watching the Olympics on our
TV intensely. I would glance over as a
girl on ice skates glided about, my mother giving nervous commentary about the
moves the young lady was executing. To
me it was dreadfully boring, so I kept walking to my room. I guess I always assumed my son would play
soccer like I did... or even baseball because he seemed to be very good at hitting,
but FIGURE SKATING???? “Um....” I think
was all I managed at first. “Where did
you even see figure skating?” He told me
he had seen some video at Grandma’s house.
I looked down at my blond haired, diminutive son, who’s head
barely was above the kitchen table. If
he had said, “Dad, I’m planning on becoming a superhero, sign my up for kick
boxing!” it would have seemed just as improbable. It was the middle of summer for Pete
sake!! Who even thinks about ice skating
in the summer? Then I remembered
something.... “Well,” I said slowly, “someone
just donated five pairs of inline skates to the church and told me to give them
out to kids. Why don’t you pick one out
and skate on the back porch?”
I didn’t realize Almighty God was already working in this
story... a story that I failed to grasp had just started! One month before Matt’s big declaration a
visiting relative of a church family had donated five pairs of inline skates to
be given out by me to kids who wanted them. Since I was a pastor they figured I was the best one to do this task. “Great, thanks,” I told them, not really sure
what to do. NOW I know a lot of kids but
in my earlier ministry days... I was still very new to the area! God knew.
He had them waiting for my son.
In my almost twenty-five years of ministry I have only been given inline
skates to hand out once. If I did a
straw pole of the pastors in my area, I’ll bet none of them have ever had that
happen. God was on the move and I didn’t
even know it. I went back to work.
The next day a triumphant Matthew said, “I did it!” Again, I was lost in the ether of the adult
world, so I asked, “What did you do, Matt?”
A very proud Matthew said, “I just skated on the back porch for five
minutes!” If this was a “Choose Your Own
Adventure” book for adults, there would have been several choices. “If you say to your son, ‘THAT’S
AMAZING!! Give me a high five!!’” Go to
page 25. “If you tell your son, ‘That’s
nice. Good for you!’ Go to page 11. What did I say? “Well, Matt.
I don’t really care about figure skating, so it’s no skin off my nose,
BUT if you want to be an Olympian? They
practice for hours!” I don’t think that
as an option in the adult Choose Your Own Adventure book, but that is what I
said. A former athlete, Vanessa
Helgeland, sums me up well, when she said, “Coach, you give lousy pep
talks!!” Her words could not be truer in
this situation but Matt turned around and marched out to the back porch. He skated for hours that summer on it! I mean hours! I think he was going into third grade that year!! I was impressed with his work ethic but still had no idea where to get
ice skating lessons from.
I asked the youth group in October, “What do you guys want
to do?” The kids looked at each other
and said, “We want to go to a hockey game!”
We had dial up internet at this point, so finding information wasn’t as
easy as it is today. I decided to stop
by the Elmira
Do you understand the odds of my seeing this sign? Remote!!
I probably would have discovered Corning Ice Rink eventually but that program
was on a lower level from Elmira
My mother-in-law heard about Matt’s lessons and immediately
wanted to help. She bought him his own ice
skates and offered to pay for the lessons.
Little did I realize how much she would eventually be part of this quest
Matthew had embarked on.
Author Michelle Ule defines a Coming of Age story as, “A
coming of age story describes the changes that happen in a young person’s life
as they mature from childhood to young adulthood.” This is a look at the genre, while examining
a character who is not pretend. Unlike
Jack Pascel (Assumed Risk Series), Myth (Asylum Series), Little Wolf (Wolf
Hunting), Will (American Fairytale), or Calder (Life, Liberation, and the
Pursuit of Video Games), Matthew is a real person. He is my son.
Doesn’t that negate the “Coming of Age” genre then? After all, this is not a fictional story,
shouldn’t it be under a different category?
I think exploring the genre with a real life story is fun, especially a
story I was a part of.
Matthew has already experienced some character growth. Although his father wasn’t very kind about
it, Matt learned that he would have to leave a child’s work ethic behind if he
wanted to achieve his goal. He skated
for hours with no promise of ice cream, money, or rewards. In fact, to be honest, I didn’t care whether
he skated or not. However, I was proud
of him and he was already winning my heart in this area. If he hadn’t have put in the effort over the
summer I don’t think I would have gone out of my way to do lessons. Now if Matt had wanted to do a baseball
clinic or soccer camp, I would have tried to move heaven and earth for
that:) Matt’s not the only one that
grows in this story... I grow too:)
*** Author Adrian
Essigmann has eighteen books in print on Amazon.com, soon to be nineteen! All of them are $.99 cents on Kindle, with
the exception of “An Assumed Risk” which will be (Lord willing) an e-book
before summer. All of his books are
available in soft cover too! Type Amazon
Adrian Essigmann and his author’s page should come up ***
Book of the Week – American Fairytale - $.99 cents on Amazon
Kindle books (paper version is available too) – “This book blends the magic of
a Fairytale with historical fiction. Although it is set in the years leading up
to the American Revolution, it has an evil wizard, a princess, and other worldly
weapons. It is a book that can be enjoyed by the whole family, yet has hidden
meanings that an adult will find stimulating.”
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