Middlebury Magazine

  • Recent Stories
  • Menu
    • Features
    • Essays
    • Q&A
    • Podcasts
    • Review
    • Videos
    • About
    • Advertising
    • Contact
    • Support
    • Writers’ Guidelines
  • Search

Winter 2017 Editor's Note

Taking the Ice

Ice skating—how hard can it be?

By Matt Jennings
Illustration by Traci Daberko
January 15, 2017
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • Email icon

Thirty brave souls—I might be projecting just a bit—show up for the first day of the winter term workshop Learn to Ice Skate. Before taking the ice, the students spread out around the skate-changing room just off Kenyon Arena, checking in with their instructors, getting fitted for skates, and signing insurance waivers.

“If you’ve never been on the ice before, you’re required to wear a helmet,” junior Lydia Waldo announces to the class. She’s one of three instructors along with sophomore Rose Kelly and senior Elizabeth Green. I ask Green how many of the students are beginners. “Probably about one-third,” she says. “The others probably skated when they were younger, but haven’t been on the ice in years.”

The divide is immediately clear as a little more than half the class strides confidently through the blue double doors leading to the rink; the others, numbering 14, take a little longer to get ready, fidgeting with helmets and retying skates, before taking tentative steps onto the ice. These are my people. I’m to join them—though not today; I have to take notes—a novice among novices, 45 years old, a Vermont resident for 15 years, the father of a 10-year-old skater. My eyes are riveted on the beginners as they hug the boards, a flurry of thoughts running through my head: Who needs to know how to do this? Why would someone think they need to know how to do this? How can I get out of this?

Already, they’ve dubbed themselves the Wall Crew, and they march along the wall single file like penguins, taking short, choppy steps, as if performing a slow-motion conga line. “All right, hands off the boards,” Waldo instructs. Oh no, so soon? I think. Waldo then leads the group through a series of exercises—they learn how to safely fall, how to get up, how to stroke, how to stop. After 30 minutes, most of the group can skate down and back, their legs no longer ramrod straight, their steps less tentative.It dawns on me that when I come out—with skates next time—I’ll be all alone in ability. And fear. “You’ll be fine,” Waldo assures me. “It’s going to be fun.”

I don’t believe her, until I look out and register the looks on the faces of the Wall Crew.

Okay, I allow.

Maybe.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Stories

Features

A Dog’s Life

A filmmaker takes us into the minds of the animals who are part of our families.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photograph by Randal Ford
April 4, 2025

On Parenting

Caitlin McCormick Murray ’05 has some thoughts on what it means to be a good mom.

By Frederick Reimers ’93
Photograph by Justin Patterson
March 15, 2025

Object Lessons

Curator Rebekah Irwin sees Middlebury's Special Collections as a laboratory, where antiquities meet utility.

By Caroline Crawford
Photograph by Adam Detour
August 23, 2024

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

How one alumna is embracing a distinctive reforesting technique that promotes accelerated ecological benefits.

By Elena Valeriote, MA Italian '19 in conversation with Hannah Lewis '97
Illustrations by Karlotta Freier
August 16, 2024

Dispatches

Thanks for the Memories

A student-curated exhibit explores the Middlebury experience through more than a century of undergrad scrapbooks.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photographs by Todd Balfour
May 5, 2025

Fear Factor

A scientific model—and work of art—warns of the next pandemic.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Jonathan Blake
April 4, 2025

From NESCAC to NFL?

Thomas Perry '25 has a shot at playing football on Sundays.

By Matt Jennings
Photograph by Rodney Wooters
March 11, 2025

Words in Space

A NASA interpreter bridges the language gap, one mission at a time.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Illustrations by Davide Bonazzi
February 15, 2025

Keeping Her Stick on the Ice

An alumna’s passion for ice hockey puts her in the record books.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Illustration by Connie Noble
January 26, 2025

Watch Party

Henry Flores ’01 builds a community of collectors.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Hubert Kolka
January 15, 2025

A Man of Letters

The art of letter writing may be in decline, but one alumnus has kept it alive in a unique way.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photograph used with the permission of Melvin B. Yoken
October 9, 2024

If the Sneaker Fits

Adam King ’05 brings an Asian aesthetic—and celebrates Asian American culture—with his startup, 1587 Sneakers.

By Jessie Raymond ’90
Photograph by Sasha Greenhalgh
August 22, 2024

Jacob Shammash and the Gift of the Torah

A story of two journeys.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photographs by Paul Dahm
April 21, 2024
View All

Essays

Shear Madness

A yarn shop owner with no livestock experience takes an unlikely detour.

By Lindsey Spoor, MA French ’08
Illustration by Ben Kirchner
April 4, 2025

Q&A

37 Minutes with Lorraine Besser

The professor and philosopher talks about the three elements of the “good life”—especially the one happiness culture overlooks.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Oliver Parini
April 4, 2025

Quotation

A summer immersed in a language can do wonders, as veterans of Middlebury College’s famous language-learning program can attest. The lockdown is clearly going to amount to the equivalent of about two summers, and there are mini-Middleburys happening in millions of houses worldwide.”

—John McWhorter, writing “The Coronavirus Generation Will Use Language Differently” in the Atlantic.

Podcasts

The Exit Interview with Middlebury President Laurie L. Patton

With her presidency at Middlebury coming to an end, the host of this podcast becomes its final guest.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
December 18, 2024

The Monterey Trialogue: A Distinct Take on Superpower Diplomacy featuring Anna Vassilieva and Peter Slezkine

Our guests for episode six of season three are Anna Vassilieva and Peter Slezkine, the folks behind the Monterey Trialogue—which brings together leading experts from the United States, China, and Russia for in-depth discussions of their countries' interests and concerns in the vital regions of the world.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
July 19, 2024

Education as the Great Equalizer, featuring Annie Weinberg ’10

Our guest for episode five of season three is Annie Weinberg '10, the founder and executive director of Alexander Twilight Academy, an educational catalyst program in Boston, Massachusetts, that supports students from under-resourced backgrounds.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
March 14, 2024

Review

Editors’ Picks for March and April

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
April 10, 2025

Editors’ Picks for January and February

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
February 14, 2025

Long Live Brazenhead

Out of a secret bookstore comes a unique literary review.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photograph by Todd Balfour
January 13, 2025

Videos

Creating Community Through Hip Hop

For three days in March, the sounds, styles, and fashions of global hip hop converged on Middlebury for an electric symposium.

By Jordan Saint-Louis '24
April 17, 2023

Pomp and Unusual Circumstances

As viewed from above.

By Chris Spencer
June 1, 2021

Davis the Owl Returns Home

Having recovered from life-threatening injuries, a beautiful winged creature is released to its natural habitat.

By Andrew Cassell
April 22, 2021
Middlebury College
  • Alumni
  • Newsroom
  • Contact Us
  • icon-instagram

The views presented are not necessarily those of the editors or the official policies of the College.

© 2025 Middlebury College Publications.