If The Shoe Fits

Liesl, 7N

I admit it, I love figure skating. I tell my husband that figure skating is to me what the Broncos are to him; if he hears me screaming in the other room he knows I am watching competitive figure skating. I can't skate at all, though. When I was a little girl I would get out on the ice and sort of shuffle my feet around the rink. I looked ridiculous! Oh, I looked ridiculous except for one thing: I had some damn cute skates.

It boils down to the footwear every time, doesn't it? I had gotten skates for Christmas because I had happened upon a movie with Sonja Henie on TV. She looked so cute with her tippy toe moves and her twirls and her blond curls. I wanted to be just like her! So, as usual, my mom bought me a nice pair of white skates. I wanted white ones because that was what Sonja Henie had in her movies. However, when I got to the rink the next day I noticed a few girls who had flesh colored skates! Oh! those were unique! I wanted those instead. Gone were my dreams of Sonja Henie tippy toe moves and in were my dreams of streamlined fashion.

In watching the Olympic figure skating I find myself still drawn to the flesh colored skates. I like to think of my ice dancers as having the natural ability to glide along the ice on their bare feet. Yes, that is the impression flesh colored skates give. Their flesh colored tights extend right down to their flesh colored skates as if that is what a normal person would look like if they didn't have to wear skates. Every now and then a moment of reality sets in and I imagine their feet falling off from frostbite (black skates?), but those moments of reality are few and far between. I usually only see some interesting looking feet gliding across the ice, and oops, falling every now and then.

I wonder whatever happened to my skates?

Today's favorite shoe:

Charles by Charles David Aloof