Life Meets Art

Having written an in-depth and enlightening piece about local ice skating rinks for this week's MHM (that's sarcasm, folks) today I decided to engage in participatory journalism. After the fact, yes, but what the heck. It gave me a place to start this yarn.

Today being the first this week in which humans could be outdoors for more than 5 minutes without dying from exposure, I unearthed my circa-1965, Bobby Hull-style hockey skates (50 cents at a Milwaukee Goodwill about 20 years ago), loaded up the family and headed to First and Garfield.

Now, athleticism and grace are not things normally attributed to yours truly. But today, all of that changed. Today, I was a swan. I sailed about the ice like Katarina Witt, hitting triple toe loops and double axels with world class skill. My interpretative ice dance to "Bolero" brought high school girls huddled next to the warming house to tears. By the end of the afternoon, I was buzzing with visions of going to nationals, then worlds. I'll take out that prissy Nancy Kerrigan with a rubber hose myself, dammit. I am going to win the gold! I could almost hear Dick Button lisping, "He nailed it! Tonight, he is truly MAGNIFICENT!"

Allright. That's all total bullshit. I stumbled around like the long lost gooney bird for ten minutes until my arches were on fire and I had to stagger back to the warming house bench, gasping for air. But my skating did actually make those high school girls cry. I can assure you of that.