Frozen in Time: How Skating Connected My Family Across Generations
Memories, Happy Meals, and an Unexpected Career
Another generation is taking ice skating lessons.
My grandson Patrick is following in the footsteps of my son Zak and myself by learning to skate and play ice hockey.
Zak was also five when we first started taking lessons together. I was 32 and always wanted to learn to skate so I could play ice hockey. It was never too late for me to have a happy childhood.
I grew up in Edison, New Jersey (yes, that Edison, big light bulb memorial in the Menlo Park section of town) during the ’60s and ’70s, and there were no hockey rinks anywhere nearby.
I took French in junior high because the Montreal Canadians were the top team in the NHL at that time.
On one hand, being the only boy in a French class with seven women could have been a good break for me. However, my teenage awkwardness and shyness prevailed, so I failed them and French. C’est la vie!
My mother tried to use hockey to motivate me to improve my failing grades in French class.
She would say, “You will need to learn French if you want to play hockey.” My 13-year-old mind was thinking, “Hey, Mom, um, how about a pair of skates…
