They’ve erected an ice rink in front of the Paris Hotel de Ville. As many adults are there styling away on the ice as there are kids. The kids, of course, are just kids, making the machinations of racing, out of control, arms and legs flung out flopping on the ice as if
making angels in the snow. I don’t see any personally owned skates; they all appear to be the property of the vendor running the operation.
In Chicago the maintenance man flooded the playground with water at the first freeze so we could ice skate through the winter during recess and at lunch. Everybody brought their own skates, decorated with pom-poms or neon laces. My Dad attended the University of Chicago so my skates were kind of run down and plain, but I didn’t care. I could style or race with the best of them! Those were the days when I didn’t mind being proud of my accomplishments.
Even in High School when I lived in Edina, Minnesota I skated every day after school. The Park Ranger built bonfires by the side of the frozen lake and we’d skate like crazy, warm up and go back out for more.
I started to feel sorry for these Parisian kids on their phony ice, but then I looked at their faces. They had the same measure of glee I used to feel and everyone was having fun!
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