Telling Our Stories:

    "Lexlexey'em"

Learning to Skate

I first went to school at the Mission in 1952. That was for grades one and two. When I was eight Years old, a day school was built at Sugar Cane. So, for the next three years I would go to school at Sugar Cane. It was during that time that I learned to ice skate. I didn’t have any skates to learn to skate, but I wanted to learn to skate, badly. The only place that there was ice nearby was down at the Little Creek.  That’s where the kids went to skate.

Sammy Peters always came to our house to visit. He was Mary Anne’s son and Mary Anne was dad’s sister. Everybody visited back then. One day when Sammy was visiting, I happened to mention that I sure would like to learn to skate. He said that he had skates, but that they were size 9. My goodness, I was only size 3 or 4 at the most, but I was desperate. He agreed to loan his skates to Jake and me. Jake had already learned how to skate at the mission, so he had no problem.  What a site it was when it came my turn. I had put on about four or five pairs of socks to try and make the skates fit. I got the skates on and even with the five pairs of socks and the eye loops pulled almost over each other, the skates were still too big. What a site. The skates seemed to stick out almost a foot in front of me. I must have fallen down at least a dozen times before I finally was able to stay standing. The ice was sloped downward as it was on top of a flowing creek. I didn’t have to push, I just started gliding down the ice. However, about fifteen feet down the creek there was an opening in the ice and you could see the flowing water. I had learned how to stay standing, but I hadn’t learned how to stop. I kinda panicked, but not for long. I did the most natural thing to stop- I dropped on my butt. I didn’t end up in the creek. I had learned to skate.