Do Not Buy Me Ice Skates For My Birthday

by Kevin Burton

   My wife told my granddaughter that I am “good” at skating. This is the topic on today’s installment of Fun With Adjectives!

  My name is Kevin. I’ll be your host.
   I am fond of saying that my wife is tall and beautiful. Both “tall” and “beautiful” are adjectives modifying Jeannette. But there is a definite difference in degree between the two.

   Whereas Jeannette is breath-takingly, jaw-droppingly beautiful, she’s just a wee, wee bit tall.

   She towers over her mother and sister.  She is also way taller than our neighbors’ German Shepherd. Though she is also taller than all the dogs I have encountered, she is not tall compared to many other human beings. 

   See what I mean?  Difference in degree.

   OK, so back to the skating. I believe what Jeannette meant to say is “Kevin is good at skating, compared to me.”

   Or maybe she could have employed the comparative form of the adjective, “better” or the superlative form, “best.” In a good-better-best world, maybe I can be called good. Other people are better. I am nowhere near the best. Widening the comparison this way slots me properly toward the lower percentiles of skating ability.

   This scene was on display Dec. 27, as the oldest and wisest granddaughter had the inspired idea that we all go ice skating. Jeannette and I had been ice skating together once previously, maybe 15 years ago.  You can see we haven’t exactly rushed back to the rink.  I don’t know that we will rush back within the next 15 years. But it was something different to do and got us all some exercise.

   Compared to Jeannette and me, our granddaughter is Wayne Gretzky on skates, or in adjectival form “Gretzky-esque.” 

   After the hour-long ordeal/outing was done I asked my granddaughter to grade me for my skating acumen.

  “B-plus” she said. I laughed, thinking, “not really.” I would never accept anything higher than a gentleman’s C-minus for my skating and would make no complaints if the final grade were bumped down to the D level. 

   My quick estimate of that day’s skaters was about 60 percent were real skaters like my granddaughter and the rest were wallbangers like me.  Here also we must talk of differences in degree.

   I am the kind of wallbanger who can confidently skate around those people who were hanging onto the wall, white-knuckled and shivering, virtually stationary.  I was not so confident however to go more than two arm lengths away from the safety of that blessed  wall.

   I do take another lesson from the skating trip: I was content to proceed within the limitations of my ability. I had fun doing my own thing. I got what I wanted.

   For it was only for the sake of making the estimate that I even glanced toward center ice and the skaters who were zooming around. Good for the A-plus skating people, but I don’t need to keep up with them.

   And truth be told, I am able to do some fancy, rather stylish spins on the ice, were I so shallow as to feel the need to draw attention to myself in that way.

   Of course I would first need to fall down, in order to execute those spins from the seat of my pants. 

   Butt-spinning is artistry in its own right. Shame on you if you look down on it!

   But I did not fall down at all. I did not come within a mile of zooming, but I did not fall.  I took comfort in skating, along the lines of the Carpenters’ song “Sing.” You know, “don’t worry if it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear. Just sing, sing a song.”

   I did that, only in skating.

   On that basis I left the rink, left 2023 and sailed into 2024. I am hoping to find in the new year, an arena or two or three in which I can zoom. But along the way I will be content to color by numbers, skate by the wall, just sing, sing a song.