Letter From The Editor

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The Ice Spike

From 1962-1965, Capisic Pond was spooked with almost too much life. Cattails were everywhere. I remember being really afraid of a submarine-dark snapping turtle who used to lower himself into the water like the Nautilus in "TwentyThousand Leagues Under The Sea."

He had slit eyes and green running lights along his sides.

Capisic Pond was the color of root beer.

In winter, the turtle would lower himself to the bottom and go into suspended animation. The very deep pond would freeze up, fIrst with a deadly slick coat of black ice.

No one could go out on that black ice.

My father told me and my sister Janie.

We shouted at him, laughed at him, accused him of not knowing about the Beatles.

Still, he wouldn't let us go. "All of our friends skate on the black ice," we said. "Everybody who is anybody is out there!" Janie had a brand new pair of white Canadian Flyers she wanted to try out, with pompons and blade protectors. I had scuffy old hockey skates. "Come on," we shouted. "How could you embarrass me like this?" Janie cried.

My father wasn't with it. He might have flown over France and Germany in B-24s and B-17s, but now he had to loosen up. "Okay," he said. "What?" "I'll take my iron spike over there, to the center of the pond. I'll drive it into the pond, just to see how strong it is. If the. ice doesn't crack, you can skate."

It was quite a spectacle, my father kneeling down on the ice and driving a thousand-year-old spike down into the turtle's mirror while all our cool friends laughed and skated around him. They skated backwards. They did swirls and camels, cracked the whip around the solitary World War II figure of my pilot father in a red wool plaid jacket and very old boots.

Then, 15 minutes into the ice ecstasy, die spike shattered.

The pond exploded with laughter.

My mother bit her lip and poured some cocoa.

Dad, I didn't know how much love that was back then.

Back then.

• As Featured In The February 1995

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