I have an early childhood memory that often comes back to me. I’m a toddler, playing in the backyard of our home with my mother keeping an eye on me from the kitchen window a few feet away. I can see myself pulling an old pair of my father’s pants from the trash, where it was waiting to be thrown away. I take the pants by the waist and hold them over my head. Reaching as high as I can, the waist is above my head and the legs are trailing on the ground. I peek out from behind the trousers to see my mother smiling down at me. I’m thinking how big the pants are and how small I am and I’m wondering if I will ever be big enough to wear them.

Although I had uncles and older brothers, my father was always my hero. He was only five feet seven inches tall and was a trim, muscular 150 pounds, but I saw him as a giant who could do anything. This perception of him was fortified by experience. He loved the outdoors and frequently took the family to a beach far out on the North Shore of Long Island. My mother and sister weren’t too fond of the beach, so they often stayed behind.

He was a powerful and tireless swimmer, specializing in the breast stroke. He thought nothing of swimming a half mile across the bay at Crystal Brook and back, often against the tide. Sometimes he took me along on his back for the ride, even as I got a bit older and had learned to swim, since it wasn’t something for a young child to attempt. I felt both secure and exhilarated as I clung to his shoulders and felt his powerful strokes moving us through the swirling water.

We had a big, heavy rowboat that played a big part in the good times I had on the water with Dad and my big brothers Barry and Fred. We used it for fishing and other activities on the water. We even slept under it on the beach at night. I remember an occasion when the four of us were in the boat, with Fred and Barry each pulling on one oar against a strong tide. I was only a skinny ten year old, but they were big, strong young men of 18 and 20 by this time. Despite their greatest efforts, we were getting nowhere against the tide, so my father took over. I watched in admiration as he took control of the boat with powerful strokes and carried us on our way against the rushing tide as my brothers sighed with relief.

My brothers and I often went camping with him and this was one of many ways in which I learned to rough it. As my brothers grew older and drifted away on their own, I continued to go boating and camping with Dad. I was the one who was closest to him and our times together are among my fondest and most enduring memories.

By the time I reached early adolescence I began slowly drawing away from Dad as I sought more freedom and independence. I started looking for faults in him as I looked for new heroes. Mister Berlin, my gym teacher in school, seemed to fill the bill. He was young, smart, strong and athletic and he liked me. What more could a boy want? Dad was still very much in the picture, but he was soon to be put to the test.

I should mention a few words about Dad’s background to give the story better context. His youth was spent in Denmark, where he spent a lot of time in outdoor activities, such as boating and ice skating. I believe that he had quite a reputation for figure skating in earlier years. I went ice skating from time to time, but I hadn’t seen him on ice. Brooklyn, New York was not the ice skating Mecca that Scandinavia was. For one thing, it didn’t always freeze long enough for us to have good skating. I went with friends of my own age and never developed much skill. Up to the day I will describe, I had never been ice skating with my father. One winter, when I was in my early teens there was a long cold spell and everything froze over. This must have reminded Dad of Denmark, because he dug out his old figure skates that I had never seen him use and sharpened them. I was delighted when he suggested that we go ice skating on the big lake in Prospect Park, which was a short drive from our home.

Dad admitted that he hadn’t done any skating in twenty years, but he now felt game to try it. A devilish feeling came over me as I imagined him falling all over the place. After all, he was an old man, past fifty, and way out of practice. I was looking forward to a good laugh at his expense. Just to make it even better, we ran into my gym teacher, Mister Berlin, who was also preparing to skate on the lake in his brand new hockey skates. For a while, I lost track of Mr. Berlin as we put on our skates and got onto the ice.

Just as I had expected, Dad was shaky on his feet and moved very gingerly. I held my breath as I waited for him to take a tumble. Shaky as he was at first, he continued moving about on the ice and his movements rapidly grew steadier and more confident. Carefully, he started to do a figure eight. Surely, this was the time when his age and lack of practice would catch up with him and he would fall. But with every minute his movements became smoother. I could hardly believe it when he completed the figure eight. After doing a few of those forward, he did it backwards and spun around on one foot. By this time, the other skaters stopped to watch and left him plenty of room as he performed more acrobatics on the ice. I was bursting with pride for him. 

While this performance was captivating the crowd, I became aware of a disturbance nearby. I turned and saw Mr. Berlin struggling to stay on his feet on the ice as he headed in our general direction. When he finally fell on his face, his momentum caused him to slide across the ice and come to a stop, almost touching my feet. I said "Hello Mister Berlin, are you having good time." He replied, "Yes, are you?", then he painfully climbed to his feet and made his way off the ice and went home.