When I was growing up I attended a Private School from kindergarten through 8th grade, but this wasn’t in any way to do with my family having money. My father was the Head of the English Department so I got a free ride that I never wanted. Part of this elitist idiots institution of privilege was that they had an ice skating rink so ever winter for P.E. we would walk over and ice skate for class. Now knowing that kids grow quick and that outside of P.E. I’d never use them my father found away around needlessly spending money on new ice skates. He quite simply located a man who lived near by who rented ice skates during the winter months.
The elderly gentlemen who ran the rental operation ran it out of his house. Now I can’t tell you what the house even looked like as we always went after dark, but in all due fairness it gets dark by 5 p.m. during winter. What I remember is the following. I remember my father making a right hand turn off a residential street and driving down a short driveway were he parked the car. Once we got out of the car the house was on the left and when you looked over you saw your basic 2 car garage with a plain old run of the mill white exterior door. We would enter through the plain white door into a completely dark area about the size of your average closet. To the right once you stepped through the door was a doorway that led to a set of steps (approximately 5-6 steps in total) that we’ed walk down into base of the operation if you will. The room was dimly light by outdated and well worn florescent lights who’s originally sterile soul sucking silent office light had degraded into a flickering odd shade of grey with a loud humming buzz. The floor was bathed in a 1970’s Ultra Shag carpet of dark brown with flecks of deep yellow and orange through out. The walls were completely bare with off white paint that during countless years had developed a time worn yellowing. The only other thing in the entire room was a home made wood bench that was wrapped around the walls and had some poor excuse for padding. There was a small laundry room directly across from the steps that housed a washer, dryer and an ice skate sharpening machine like the one you see at regular ice skating rinks. There was in fact a 3rd room but we will get back to that in a minute.
Once you sat down on the bench it was vertically identical to buying shoes. The Old man probably mid 60’s standing about 6 feet 3 inches tall wearing a plaid shirt, suspenders, work pants (Dickies) and a pair of beat down construction boots would gather up 3 or 4 pairs of skates. After collecting the skates he would walk over and kneel down as you tried on the skates he would lace them for you. While lacing and unlacing the skates until finding the right pair would exhale heavily through his nose periodically like a long nasal sigh. Now I don’t believe this was out of discomfort (i.e. old joints, bad knee etc) or emotion (anger,irritating,disgust etc.) ,but rather a peculiar personal trait the man developed over his life time, and more then likely wasn’t even aware at his advanced age he was even making a noise. Once the correct and proper pair of ice skates was found the Old man would collect the rental fee and that was that until returning them in Spring.
Now remember that 3rd room I said we’ed get back to well we’re back to it. See just like with shoes you have to walk around a bit in a pair of skates as you would a pair of shoes to insure they fit correctly. I had always wondered since the beginning of these yearly rentals exactly where the skates to be rented where. So while testing out a pair of skates one year to see in they fit I got up enough nerve to really walk around the room. I normally you see would only take a few steps as not to be too far from my father or the exit door as I found the whole situation creepy as shit as a kid, and as I write this I have the same feeling. As I walked around the room I noticed there was a slight 3 foot long extenuation coming out of the wall to create a degree of privacy, (I don’t know why someone would build a basement with a privacy wall of sorts unless your a serial killer) and around on the other side was the 3rd previously unseen room. I teetered and wobbled around until I could see in the 3rd room and what I saw is the strangest part of the story. The large room was filled to capacity with pairs of ice skate, hundreds upon hundreds of them like it was the Fort Knox of ice skates. There were pairs of skates lying side by side in row after row covering the entire floor, and there were cubbies lining the walls from the floor to the ceiling each one housing a pair of ice skates.
To this day my one and only question has created plentiful hypothesizes BUT NEVER answered is simply “Where the Hell did this Old Man get Hundreds and Hundreds of pairs of ice skates?” How did he amass so many pairs? This question alone only brings more questions and no answer.
