Skating on Memories

Today I cycled, skated, and swam for free, but what I later paid re-kindled memories.

The annual Tour de Cariboo, a 75-kilometre ride from Williams Lake, up into the Cariboo Mountains, to Gavin Lake Resort, was today.  The local branch of Big Brothers and Big Sisters organizes this fundraiser.  Sponsored riders, singly or in teams, get a meal at the resort, stay the night, and trucks bring their bicycles back to Williams Lake the next day.

The 60th anniversary celebration of West Fraser, a local sawmill and plywood company, was also today.  The company sponsored a free skate and free swim in the local recplex, to whose upcoming renovation it has donated a half million dollars.  There were free hamburgers, hot dogs, pop, chips, and cupcakes in the nearby park.  Musicians played, people painted children's faces, and the  September sun shone on all.  A film in the recplex auditorium narrated the company's history.

The bike ride began at 9:00 AM.  The free food and music was from noon until 4:00 PM.  The free skate was from 12:15-1:45 PM.  The free swim was from 1:30-5:00 PM.  I attended all, but paid, but my payment kindled memories.

About 50 riders began the ride at 9:15.  I planned to ride until 10:30, then turn around to attend the other events.  At 10:30, after riding mostly uphill, I was happy to coast down the hills to the main highway back to Williams Lake.  The last hill was a rush:  don't get a flat tire or other breakdown at that speed.  The last kilometre in the city was a sore-bummed walk.  I learned that I need a softer seat for my bike.  I had reached the 25-kilometre rest station, actually a few kilometres beyond it.

I got home, stored my bike, took my skates, swimsuit, and towel, and walked 300 metres back to the park for a free hamburger, pop, and chips.   The volunteer guitarist, his fingers having survived his woodworking job until retirement, played "Gunga Din" and "The Boxer"  while I ate at one of many tables set up under a big awning.  Then I went to the rink.
  
Skating for an hour was a good stretch for my cycle-complaining muscles.  The pool, hot tub, steam room, and sauna added to the relief.  My skates, which I put under a bench by the shelves on the pool deck, were gone when I got out of the pool.

These are not just any skates, as those who know me know.

My mom bought them for me during my last year of minor ice hockey, 1975-76, when my teenage feet hadn't quite finished growing.  Still, the skates stretched enough to fit for the next 40 years.  Whoever stole the skates will have little chance of accumulating memories as golden as the skates have given me.

As I walked to the local thrift shops looking to look for another pair of skates, I thought of the places these skates and I have been.  I found no skates, but I hope to find some soon. 

That last year of ice hockey was a prelude to an adulthood of skating in many exotic places.

First, the skates and I were on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, the city where I spent three years in university in the 1980s.  I remember skating alone on the canal one January when the air temperature was -35 Celsius.  I remember skating to University of  Ottawa graduate English classes with Charlotte, a Toronto-born student friend with hair blond like the sun, and eyes blue like the sky.
I remember Winterlude, Ottawa's winter festival, beaver tails sold in this shack, maple syrup on snow in that shack, skaters pushing buggies and wheelchairs, the late-winter sun melting the ice and snow sculptures.

Second, the skates and I were in Whitecourt, where I was a newspaper reporter in 1982-83.  The sports reporter had volunteered for the annual local skate-athon.  My skates had done skate-athons in Edson, 100 km away, where I had grown up.  Joe had never played hockey and was shaky on skates.  He wanted to practice before the skate-athon.  I offered to skate along to help.  Joe later completed the skate-athon.  Joe was from Ste. Catherines, close to Toronto.

Third, the skates were with me in Denendeh, a few years later.  I worked for Hudson's Bay Northern Stores.  I spent the 1986-87 winter in Nahecho Keh, Fort Providence, where Deh Cho, the Mackenzie River, leaves Great Slave Lake, Canada's deepest, to flow north to the Arctic Ocean, more than 1000 km away.  Near the dock, where barges stopped in summer, there was a snye, a still body of water perpendicular to the river.  The snye froze smooth and clear that winter.  My skates and I were there, and on the outdoor rink in the main community.

Fourth, during the 1990s I taught school in rural places, two of them with outdoor rinks.  More than once, I herded my charges to the rink, sometimes to skate, sometimes to play hockey.

Fifth, my skates and I glided on Lac Beauvert, by Jasper Park Lodge in the 2000s.  My younger sister had invited my little family there.  She says I taught her to skate when she was little.  I forget, but I believe her.

Sixth and last, those skates were on me during the handful of free skates each year at the smaller of two indoor rinks in the local recplex.  Today I skated there, my last time on those skates; but what memories today brought back, after someone stole the skates.

I doubt that the person who stole the skates today will build memories on them of such high quality as the memories which the skates helped me build; but I hope the skates inspire him, or the person to whom he sells them.  Mom probably paid $40 or so for these skates, budget but durable Daousts, a brand name long gone.  What are 40-year-old pair of skates worth?  It depends on who answers the question.

Less than an hour after I wrote the above, someone called from the pool to say that they had found my skates, in  the men's change room.  I hastened down.

"I suspected a guy, digging around in his stuff for a long time near where my skates were, while I waited for him to get out of the way so I could get my skates and swim bag," I told the pool desk clerk when I got there.  I said that I had followed my suspect to the change room, where he locked himself in a toilet. "What man changes in a toilet?"  I knocked and asked if he has my skates.  He said no.  Then he finished changing and left.  I didn't think to look in the toilet, doubting that he had taken the skates.

I asked the desk clerk where she found my skates.  She said she didn't find them.  She sent me to a lifeguard, on deck.  She sent me to another lifeguard, in the hallway by the change rooms.  He confirmed that he found my skates in a toilet in the men's change room.  I told him about the suspect.  I returned to the desk clerk with this lifeguard's news.  She said the thief probably knew I was onto him and left the skates behind.

Had I not gotten out of the pool when the thief did, had I not followed him, had he gotten the skates out of the building, I would not have them now.

Instead, now I have the skates, and the memories.  Loss compels words, but so can gain.

I gave the pool desk clerk and the lost-and-found manager, who had looked for the skates, a cupcake each.  I had wangled a six pack of cupcakes from the West Fraser people bringing yet more from the recplex to the park near the end of the afternoon's celebration.  "Your party is almost over.  It's almost four.  Too  many cupcakes, eh?"  I asked.  "Yep," one of the bearers said.  "May I have one?"  "Have a package of six."

Sweet, all round, today.  Even my bum hurts less than it did after my 50-km bike ride up into and down out of foothills of the Cariboo  Mountains.   Thanks for reading my little tale. 

Now lace up for "Skater's Waltz:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV4BxDcWus8