It was our first winter living by the lake and my wife Barbara and I were rummaging in the attic, looking for our ice skates. The lake had suddenly become an inviting, smooth, shiny playground.
“Let’s have an ice skating party,” Barbara said, and I agreed. It was a great idea to get us through the January doldrums. “We’d better have it soon, while this cold spell lasts,” she said.
We decided to invite everyone, friends and family, who liked to ice skate, not worrying about an overcrowded house. “They’ll be spending most of the day doing figure eights or playing hockey,” I said. “And don’t forget your Aunt Ethel, Barbara. She’s always boasted about having been a talented ice skater in her youth. Something about almost achieving the most difficult jump, the ‘Triple Axel’, the one with three airborne revolutions.”
That was Monday night. By Friday our RSVP list covered two pages, with only a few “Sorry, can’t make its”. By then the frigid weather must have added another inch or two to the ice’s thickness.
Most of the guests arrived by noon on Saturday when a northern gale was blowing and I was able to coax only a few, including Aunt Ethel, down to the lake where it was quite grim. The sun helped a little, providing mostly light but only a degree or two of heat.
We struggled through the numbing ordeal of lacing up our skates, put our frozen hands back into our mittens and glided out onto the slippery dance floor. There were about a dozen of us. We must have resembled an ill-fated Polar expedition on its last day.
Following Aunt Ethel’s advice, I began to skate briskly and felt the better for it. I began to get in touch with my previously numb left foot and worked on my right foot by jumping up and down.
Just when I began wondering how I could get my guests to mingle more, Aunt Ethel broke the ice. While trying her famous triple-spin jump, one skate got caught on the hem of her raccoon cloak and she crash-landed, uninjured except for her pride. That was what we needed to get our guests talking to one another.
We all pitched in, helped her to shore, removed her skates and ran her up to the house before she solidified. After three hot toddies, Aunt Ethel shushed our protests and was off again, to the frozen lake.
But more guests were returning from skating and others were making excuses for not skating at all. They all reported seeing Aunt Ethel in good shape and frequently airborne. But the crowd made it difficult to move through the rooms and Barbara had to push her way to the stove to heat up the hot dogs, beans and soup.
Crowding forced our guests to get chummy and there were lively conversations about wind-chill factors and frostbite treatment until the police arrived with four of our skaters who’d been blown across the lake and tossed up on the shore, dazed and frostbitten. We warmed them up with various hot drinks and reset the thermostat to 90 degrees.
Around sunset, we saw a small group, huddled against the wind, and walking slowly up the hill. “What are they carrying?” Barbara asked. “It looks like a white statue, but the arms are waving.”
“I think it’s Aunt Ethel,” I said. “Looks like the Axel’s third revolution spun her through the ice.”
Imagine That 