It’s Pronounced “Sal-cow,” a guest post by Kelly Rand
My guest today is Canadian writer and editor Kelly Rand, author of “The Quad” in the Going For Gold anthology. I was thrilled to include a Winter Games sport and “The Quad” the story of Kevin, a young figure skater from an impoverished background who has overcome steep odds to make the Canadian Olympic figure skating team. Read more about Kelly’s experiences with the sport.
To say I have experience in figure skating in the same sentence as my Olympic contender, Kevin, in the Going For Gold anthology is like saying I’ve been a rock star because I had a few guitar lessons.
But at some point in time – in a galaxy far, far away – I was a figure skater.
I grew up in a hamlet in southern Ontario that had a church and a general store. The nearest urban area of any note was Burford, population 2,000, and this is where I figure skated.
I started when I was about seven because my friend did it. My friend was two years older, so whatever she did, I did too. I gave up Saturday morning cartoons to spend a season with a kids’ bowling league. She went to a Baptist Bible camp one summer, so I went to a Baptist Bible camp. She figure skated, so I figure skated.
I am not athletic. I can still remember my meager sports accomplishments. I once caught a fly ball in a recess softball game. I once placed third in high jump during my grade school track and field day. I was about that successful at figure skating.
I skated three evenings a week and got to leave school 10 minutes early because of it. For 15 minutes an evening, I had a private lesson with a coach named Sandy, who had better things to do.
Some of Sandy’s rules seemed arbitrary. When we left the ice to use the washroom, she’d bellow at us if we took too long. “If our parents are paying for our lessons,” I told my friend, “what difference does it make to her if we f*ck the dog?” But this was a teachable moment – a way to turn us into responsible young adults – and I suppose I have figure skating in part to thank for that.
This is someone with a scribe, which we used for compulsory figures, also known as “patch.” You used it to make figure eights, although you could also swing it and knock over everyone in a seven-foot radius. Image: Jo Ann Schneider Farris, figureskating.about.com
There were compulsory figures then. You were given a patch of ice and used an instrument called a scribe – or more ideally, your own God-given circle-making instincts – to make a figure eight. Then you started in the middle of the eight, pushed off and did things around the circles. Half turns. Quarter turns. Going from forward to backward on one foot, or backward to forward. Rows of youth lined the ice as they learned different ways to skate in circles. It was so quiet that you could hear the hum of the fluorescent lights. I’d look up at the scoreboard clock and see the minutes drip past. I hated figures.
The names of other jumps seemed strange to me. There was the salchow, which we pronounced sow-cow, when there was no cow to be found. There was the flip, and its more complicated cousin the double flip, which caused the older girls to send dangerous chunks of ice flying as they chopped the slippery surface with their toe picks. Most boys who skated dropped off by puberty. The ones who didn’t seemed sexless somehow, creatures of a sterile white world who had no girlfriends – or boyfriends – to speak of.
Much like I described in “The Quad,” there was a pecking order in our small-town skating club, and from what I have heard and experienced, there always is. Figure skating is not a sport for the hard-done-by. It’s a sport of kids with money and doting parents, and like wanna-be rock stars, all of them hold that dream of stardom deep in their hearts. This dream exists for all Canadian parents who wake at the crack of dawn to drive their kids to rinks.
Those who seem closer to the dream get the good solos in the winter carnival. They get the good bench space in the dressing room. They get more attention from the private coaches, and the ability to skate through the rest of us with a sense of entitlement and pride.
Kevin has lived in my head for a few years, lodged in my cranium like an imaginary friend. I’d hear an ornate piece of instrumental music and imagine it was Kevin’s solo music, and daydreamed of him leaping and spinning in time. I liked the idea of someone unaffected stumbling into that world and kicking ass in spite of himself.
This is not the end of Kevin’s story. He grows stronger, leaner and meaner, and eventually prevails. I can’t bear to think otherwise. I like the idea of world-class athlete who quietly gets on with it without realizing he’s remarkable, even though he is.
Kevin continues to be my imaginary friend. If you’ve read the story, thanks for hanging out with us. It’s easy to tell us apart. He’s the one with the good bench space.
*****
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3 Responses to “It’s Pronounced “Sal-cow,” a guest post by Kelly Rand”
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Mmmmm. I have to admit, after my own sport and diving, ice skating is certainly my favorite sport to watch during the Games. I was a roller skating demon growing up, but always longed to ice skate. However, down south ice skating rinks were few and far between, and the one time I tried inline skates as an adult, I was surprised at how hard it was compared to traditional skates!
I love the idea that this character has been with you a long time and that he lives on, growing and maturing in his sport, and in life too. 🙂
Ack, forgot to mention my sport was eventing. As my sentence reads, it sounds as though I might have been a diver–not!
A great post.
I remember slipping and sliding along the side of an indoor rink, finally getting the hang of it enough to let go. My biggest icecapade was skating backwards.
I love watching Olympic anything, but the skaters defy gravity with some of their moves. Beautiful.
I enjoyed the story in the anthology!