On the Ice

I can walk on water.

It’s not a miracle.  The deal is, the lake below my house has frozen over.  On any given day you can look out to the lake from the back door of my house and see ice fishermen, ice skaters, maybe even a four-wheeler scooting across the lake ice.

I think it’s fair to say we take walking across the ice on a lake for granted.  Fact is, there exists a good portion of people populating this planet who are unable to fathom such a thing.  Back in 1993, Uyen and I invited a family—recently transplanted from Florida—out to our house for Christmas dinner.

Following is my journal entry from December 26, 1993:

We invited a couple and their teenage son out for Christmas dinner yesterday.  Uyen works with the husband at the Post Office.   They don’t know anybody in the state, having just moved here from Tallahassee, Florida—a town that strikes me as somewhat self-indulgent and redundant in the use of our alphabet.

"We want to die in the mountains," Barbara, the wife (who is, incidentally, pretty in a chipped tooth, bossy way) remarked as we ate our dinner.

 I almost told her I wasn't terribly interested in croaking at all, but instead I listened to her say, "We love the mountains.  Real mountains.  We've always wanted to live in the West.  Colorado.  Utah.  Nevada.  Montana.  Wyoming.  Idaho. The West!"

“West”, she said, as if it were the very savings account holding the family fortune.

After dinner, we took them down to the frozen lake.  The surface remained utterly still and perfectly flat.  A dusting of fresh snow covered the ice.  They'd never before seen a frozen lake.  Gingerly, the three of them stepped onto the lake.

Mother.  Father.  Son.

They tested the surface by swishing their boots around.  They bounced.  “Oooohing,” all three of them padded around in baby circles.

"I can't believe this," Barbara said.  "I've got to write back to my friends.  This is pretty!  I'm walking on a lake!"

And the rest of us watched her spin, handsome in her grinning, dyed-red-hair, shivering way.

On Sunday, I walked down to visit friends out fishing on the ice.  The ice there is presently eight inches thick.  I sent some photos to Desiree in Manila.  She has never seen snow.  The thought of walking on water is more than a little intriguing to her.

Fishermen on the Open Ice

Ice Houses

Inside an Ice House

—Mitchell Hegman