Explore Hudson Valley JANUARY 2018 • ULSTER PUBLISHING • WWW.HUDSONVALLEYONE.COM
A Wintry Mix
Soul on ice: Why we must all skate
T
he super-moon was the Wolf Moon. It must have been a she-wolf, because she was a bitch, and dangerously cold. But if you harbor Hans Brinker dreams and wish to compete, or just enjoy a thing called ice, this is your winter. Even Lake Ontario is frozen enough to support skating, which is unusual. Full frozen lake conditions there have happened only six times: 1830, 1874, 1893, 1912, 1934 and 2018. The Lake Ontario Toronto Polar Dip has been canceled. Take note. When I was a little girl, skating was in my genes. My grandfather raced on skates, and in his retirement years enjoyed figure skating at the rink at Rockefeller Center. My mother was the best skater of all his children. We skated at Racy’s Pond in my childhood
New Jersey town. The pond made news as far away as the Newark Star Ledger for killing a dog that licked its water in winter some time around 1990. Apparently it stopped freezing, which to any conscientious dog owner might suggest that the water was tainted.
In the more wholesome days of my youth, the pond afforded a rollicking good time. No price to pay for admission, no cover charge. The little kids wobbled and splattered along the edges, the big kids linked arms and made a whip. The whip careened in centrifugal force, growing larger as more and more kids caught on, until it was broken by its own speed, sending large teenaged boys hurtling toward all comers. Good times.
W
e have a large pond on our property, but I discourage this as a landscape feature. We’ve had three scary (continued next page)