Tales of a retired hockey player

   

    Every year when my grandson visits from North Carolina at Christmas we have a tradition of going to the Columbia Ice Rink to enjoy some ice skating.  In the past this has always been an enjoyable time to relive some pleasant memories I have of playing hockey on a frozen pond back many years when I was growing up.  Many days after school in the winter a group of my friends would meet at the pond for a hockey match which had it's share of  very vigorous cross checks that match anything you see in an NHL  match.  Cut lips and bruises were our badges of honor.  How times have changed!  I now hope to come off the ice in one piece.  I look on envying the young male skaters as they glide by me so effortlessly.  The young girls are practicing their jumps and graceful moves in the center of the skating rink.   My aging ankles begin to throb after only a few trips around the rink.  The 15 minute rest period when they redo the ice never comes soon enough. I begin to look around the rink to see if I am the oldest skater there.  Yup, it seems I am as most other adults don't look much over 35.  This cross checking of others age is something I also do at Starbucks.  When did we "hip" boomers turned into our grandparents??