Grandeur

On a recent radio broadcast, Garrison Keillor referred to ice skating as an activity possessing true "grandeur." He encouraged his audience to dig out their skates from under the cellar steps and to try again to glide along on the neighborhood pond (it has to be pond, rinks simply don't rate) like they did when they were twelve. Watching skaters, hockey enthusiasts, ice boats and even a bicycle on the broad Navesink River today, which froze a foot deep this year, was indeed a brush with grandeur. I could just imagine how those small children, who were just learning to skate, felt crossing the glass-like surface shadowing their dads on hockey blades whose own teenage moves were slowly reemerging. My next week's photos will most certainly be from the skater's perspective...