Skater Boy - Coming of Age Part VII

Title: Skater Boy – Coming of Age

Part VII

I was at a rink, one I wasn’t as familiar with, and Matthew as well as his sister Adrianna were taking lessons that day.  Little Autumn was there too and I was to watch her while the other two took lessons.  Autumn was a tiny little thing, who could zip out onto the ice like a little wood sprite, and roar about with the greatest of ease, while children her age gripped chairs and pushed it.  “A chair?” you wonder.  I’m not talking about a folding chair, although I suppose that would work... maybe?  I’m also not talking about a stuffed chair, which hopefully you figured out too:)  Every rink I’ve ever been too, uses the same sort of chair for this.  The rigid, hard, colored plastic chairs, that are attached to four metal legs.  Little kids take these and suddenly they turn from little obstacles falling everywhere, to masters of their own fate.  It’s almost like being on a lake regatta with sailing ships of different colors, being crewed by little children.

As I skated I looked at those small children, with a smirk on my face.  Autumn wasn’t out on the ice yet, but when she did, it would be like watching a super hero zip by normal people.  Other parents would say, “Is that a bird, is that a plane, no it’s super little girl!” 

While I waited for Autumn to make her appearance, I tried to learn to skate backwards.  I had seen Matt do it so many times, had watched him learn to do it for hours, and even my elementary aged daughter Adrianna could do it!  How hard could it be?  Clearly it was harder than it looked! For although I started with my toes pressed together, just like I had seen Matt do many times, and prepared to make a half a circle with each foot until my heels met, that’s about as far as I got!  I couldn’t do the circle thing and make my heels click.  “Come on!” I growled at myself, silently, “you can do this!”  The little pep talk didn’t help.  It would be like watching the Wizard of Oz and waiting for Dorothy to click  her heels together three times, only to have her move them slightly and freeze constantly. 

My peripheral vision caught Autumn entering the ice BUT... WHAT WAS THIS?????  She was pushing a small, plastic chair!!  Ugg!!!!!!  Instead of super girl flying over the city, it was like her riding her super cycle or super smart car to foil a villain.  Unhappily I snapped as she swept toward me, “Autumn!  You don’t need that THING to skate!!”

Little green eyes looked up at me earnestly.  “Oh no, Daddy!!  The chair is for you!”  Super girl had come to rescue the poor, hapless thirty something man, who was clearly in distress out on the ice.  I laughed as I realized I must have looked ridiculous out on the ice, trying to skate backwards!

It was rare that I was on the ice the same time my kids were taking lessons in those early days, and I certainly didn’t go near it when Matthew became AMAZING at ice skating!!  Despite the fact that I love to play sports and jog many miles daily, I am terrible at ice skating and don’t enjoy it.  Roller skating, I like, but that’s not what Matt chose!  I think it’s because I have weak ankles and the rental skates you get are about as helpful as tying a card board box to your foot for a road 5K.  Maybe I’ll invest in a thousand dollar pair of ice skates and take lessons from my son someday! 

Adrianna and Autumn’s ice skating careers did not last very long.  Their life dream wasn’t to go skate in the Olympics, so while they skate very well, and have had instruction from advanced coaches, that is about as far as they went.  They did compete a little as children but that was about it.  Autumn went into Martial Arts young and Adrianna was just Adrianna for awhile!  I guess after having the oldest declare as a small child he was going to the Olympics and devote tons of waking hours to it every year, you wait to see what the others will aspire to be.  Adrianna would eventually become an amazing artist, Autumn (aka “Ninja Girl”) would move up into the higher levels of Martial Arts and is finishing her career as a track star this year.  Leland... Leland never competed but he can skate too.  Leland is my strategist but when he was younger he did anything his older siblings did. 

Matthew is my Tiger.  He never wavered, spending years on the ice, even when he his dream looked bleak and unattainable.  Grandma Card has probably spent more money on Matt’s ice skating than a Harvard Graduate!  Well... okay, maybe not THAT much, but she did spend a fair amount:)  The Skater Boy has turned into a man who has an incredible level of skill!  If he was in a “Coming of Age” story he would have accomplished the goal.  The “Coming of Age” story is all about the journey of a child to from an apprentice to the master of his craft! 

*** 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 – “Life, Liberation, and the Pursuit of Video Games”  If you’re a kid I would describe it as SAO meets Dystopian literature!  (Sword Art Online)  If you are an adult I would say it is more a modern Dystopian novel.  In the old ones, there is little the hero can do against the machine they are caught in.  Take Fahrenheit 451, where the hero merely escapes robot dogs (like a normal person) instead of blasting them with a rocket launcher.  He manages to go be with other book worms (like me:) and spends his time memorizing works of literature so that they will be preserved.  How about the main character in 1984.  He pathetically works out in his State mandatory session in front of the TV instead, a mere cog in a massive wheel.  The Rocky or Karate Kid music doesn’t hit and our hero rips his shirt off to do pull ups out of the camera’s view.  Deep in the night, our massively muscled hero, breaks into his work place, and beats up five hundred guards, who all forget they have guns!  Blowing up the building, he walks off with a ripped up tee-shirt, his arm around a beautiful girl, muttering, “Double speak that!”  Even conservative icon, Ayn Rand’s hero in Anthem, Equality only manages to escape the repressive society he lives in.  His realization of the need to escape is the reaction to the “light bulb”.  Can you imagine if Equality had discovered the “M-16”?  His epiphany might have gone MUCH differently!  You say, “There is a big difference between a light bulb and an M-16!”  Is there?  It’s not like he discovered the wheel or even the concept of a bicycle!  A light bulb is a fairly advanced piece of technology, no matter how normal it may seem to us.  Even more modern Dystopian Novels like “The Giver”, “The City of Ember”, and “The Host” (okay, the Host is more alien invasion, but it is still very close to Dystopian Genre conventions) the heroes merely escape or survive.  My novel is more like the Modern Dystopian novels where the hero has the power to fight the machine and maybe... just maybe... win!!  It is $.99 cents on Kindle!