Middle aged “British Ann” took a “learn to ice skate” class through campus recreation. Lots of adult immigrants took it too. On her last day I watched Anne skate around the oval without clinging to the boards or using any walker. Big smile. “Look Ma, no hands!”
I am reminded of how tourists in Hawaii may take a class in “introduction to hula dancing.” Or ethnic pottery, piloting a sailboat, or cliff climbing. Maybe yoga, beach massage or painting. Everybody being excited, supportive, as if they might continue this hobby back on the mainland. Maybe they’ll whisper, “The ski instructor is a hottie,” only to meet him, months later, on Main Street looking rather plain, and realize his glamour had come from the class. Incidentally, there is skiing in Hawaii. T-shirts too. (Now you can win a bar bet)
Strange how, these days, I don’t seek out new leisure. I do take comfort in the professional comedians at Saturday Night Live calling themselves the “not good enough for prime time” gang. No need to be worried that my arts and crafts, singing and Ukulele playing, after ten classes, isn’t “good enough to quit my day job.” After all, the ancient Greeks had no shame about being well rounded. In fact, they said, “moderation in all things,” which might rule out long hard hours at solely one hobby.
I could hold myself back from getting involved if I thought my leisure interest has to be of the for-the-rest-of-my-life variety, like taking weekly violin lessons for years and years until I could play at the Albert Hall. What a silly way to be a spoil sport to my own life—or my vacation.
A properly run leisure experience will give participants a sense of accomplishment. For example, in only five days at Silver Star ski resort I earned my Molson Bronze Badge, for not-so-elegant S curves, controlling speed and being able to stop.
It took only ten speeches, each one focusing on a different skill such as “research” or “gestures,” to get my Competent Toastmaster badge. It used to take (I think) 14 speeches, but we adjusted for post-television times. Like how busy wartime paratroopers needed fewer jumps to qualify than today’s peacetime troopers.
It took only one semester at night school, on a standard QWERTY keyboard, (the keys across the top row) to learn to touch-type.
Hence I knew I could learn the Dvorak keyboard using lessons (link) on the web —without repainting my keys. (Because it’s called “touch-type,” not “type looking down at the keys”) Now all my vowels are on the home row! As my fear of arthritis recedes…
I once did an afternoon of theatre improvisation, frightened the whole time, secure in knowing I would eventually get the butterflies to fly in formation: Because I knew how other scary hobbies had worked out.
As hope springs eternal, I guess I’ll get active again: Maybe some day I will ask British Anne, like gentle Mister Rogers, “Won’t you be my hula dance partner?”
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Sean Crawford
Several mountain ranges inland, past the Selkirk, Monashee and Caribou
October
2023
Poetic license: The hottie ski instructors would be on the mainland, not in Hawaii, as the skiers come from the mainland. The T-shirts are local.
If I need to justify myself, in my wallet is a poetic license, from a tourist store.
