My Walk One Winter

by Kay Heitsch

When I was a child back in the 1950's living in Michigan, winter seemed to last a long time. I didn't really care because I enjoyed playing in the snow and I especially liked to ice skate. The city snow plows would bring snow and pile it in a vacant lot across the street from our house. Let me tell you that these snow piles were awesome to play on. What was especially good was that these snow piles were close to our home. I only had to walk across the street to warm up.

However, the skating rink was at the other end of town. I had a friend named Star, whose dad flooded their backyard and built an ice rink for her. Of course, I wanted my dad to water our front yard, but he never did.

To skate, I usually went to the skating rink at the other end of town. I lived in a small town, so that rink seemed a long way away at the time.Mom would drop me off then come and pick me up.

This one day, I was having fun skating. Several people were there I knew; however, one by one, they left. There was a little shed you could go in to get out of the wind and cold, which was nice. I sat in there for a short while there decided I would walk home.

I will never forget that walk on those ice skates. There were no cell phones back in those days, so I couldn't call my mom. My poor ankles were killing me by the time I walked up to our front door. The look on my mom's face! I was crying, of course. She asked why I didn't wait for her to come and get me. I didn't know. When everyone left, I didn't want to be alone there, I guess.

I didn't know how far I had walked on those skates until today. I got on the internet and put in the two locations. I thought I had walked a good 2 miles but found out it was closer to 1 mile. Anyway, walking on ice skates a mile seemed like two at the time.

I remember Mom helped me get my skates off, and we both had a cup of hot chocolate. Boy, I needed it!