I was hanging by my feet from the top of the frozen monkey bars in Crotona Park playground. My corduroy knickers provided insulation for the backs of my knees as I swung like a pendulum. How many nine-year-olds can do this, I muttered to myself. Suspended from the top of the bars I had an inverted view of the playground. While their skates were etching the ice, I could see red-cheeked skaters laughing and shouting in the frozen wading pool.
The image of the gliding skaters became fixed in my head. I could do that, if only I had a pair of skates. I ran all the way home.
“Ma, I know there is a second hand shop on Third Avenue, under the El. Could we go there and buy me a pair of ice skates?”
“When Pa comes home, if he’s not too tired, we’ll go.”
Pa dragged himself into the apartment, took off his coat, hung it in the closet, washed his hands and sat at the kitchen table to thaw himself out. Dinner was soon on the table.
Ma’s recipe for roast chicken, heavily influenced by garlic was our favorite. My uncle and my brother, Harold joined us. It was a perfect winter dinner.
With cooked prunes for dessert, Pa sat in his club chair prepared to battle the newscaster about the impending war in Europe. During a commercial, I alluded to the purchase of skates by asking Pa if he had fun in the winter as a little boy.
“We lived in a shtetl (tiny village) in Lithuania. In the winter we went glitshen (skating).”
“You had skates?”
“On shmattehs (rags) we skated. Like very long bandages they were. We wrapped them around our feet.”
“Why did you use shmattehs?”
“They were my shoes.”
“You didn’t have leather shoes with laces?”
“In the summer we went barefoot and in the winter we wore shmattehs. When my feet stopped growing, then my mother took me to a shoemaker to make me a pair of shoes.”
How could I be so selfish as to want a pair of skates after hearing that? But, in spite of those cotton rags, he had fun. Well, if we could find a pair of cheap, used skates they could be my shmattehs.
We walked about a quarter of a mile to Crotona Parkway, which bisected Crotona Park. Two blocks out of the park we came to Third Avenue. A sharp right under the El led us to a shop without a sign. The windows were opaque from dirt. Is it possible they were clear when they were first installed? Pa opened the door.
“You have maybe a pair of ice skates?” he shouted into the blackness.
Out of the dark came a middle-aged woman whose costume was state-of-the-art with her inventory. She led us along a group of mismatched chairs, nodding floor lamps, an assortment of dishes then finally, to a large, limp, corrugated cardboard box. Inside, tied together by their laces was a variety of hockey skates, figure skates and ordinary skates.
Most of the skates were much too big for me. I continued burrowing through to the bottom where in the midst of the rust I found a pair of ancients that were probably my size. It would not have surprised me if one of Hans Brinker’s pals abandoned them on the shore of the canal. The shoes were so worn at the ankles and toes, that they appeared to be made of brown suede. Their blades, 1/2″ wide, assured me that I would not turn an ankle. When I slipped my feet into them, my toes tried to reach the end of the shoe, but they failed by at least an inch. I looked quizically at the owner. She said,
“Don’t vohree about it. You’ll stick some cotton in front and for a long time you’ll have dem.” Pa gave her a quarter and we were off to Crotona Park Lake.
The scene was a replica of a Christmas card. Lamps surrounding the lake cast a yellow glow on its surface. Stars sparkled in the sky and the moon illuminated the entire area. At the north end of the lake, a rickety wooden boathouse with snow on its roof completed the wintery scene.
The whoosh of the skater’s blades, as they bit into the ice made me eager to join them. While sitting on one of the paving blocks surrounding the lake, I removed my shoes and put on my skates. Upon pulling on the laces to tighten the shoes their eyelets nearly overlapped. I didn’t care, I was going skating! Zooming across the lake, my blades nearly punctured my inflated ego when I heard, “Look at that kid go!”
I suspect that Pa had as much fun with his shmattehs as I did with mine.
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1/14/2013 SCOW (AP) — A Russian official says it’s time for the nation’s soldiers to switch from foot wraps to socks.
Since the late 17th century, Russian soldiers have been using wraps, rectangular strips of cloth that are carefully wrapped around their bare feet to prevent blisters from tall heavy boots with no laces.
But Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who took the post two months ago, said he was surprised to learn that some soldiers are still using the wraps, called “portyanki” in Russian, and told them to use socks instead.
At a televised meeting with military officers Monday, he said, “In 2013, or at least by the end of 2013, we must forget the word portyanki.”
Czar Peter the Great adopted the custom from the Dutch army in the late 17th century.