Ice

It's a gray Texas day. The sky is gray. The grass is gray. The streets are gray. The trees are gray. It might even seem like winter if not for the fact that tomorrow the temperature will zorch into the 70's.

Growing up in Minnesota, the lakes had already frozen by December. My first hockey practice went down on Meadow Lake just behind Ed Hels' house. He was the coach. He had shoveled off a swatch of ice piling the snow peripherally to create a makeshift rink. Pretty funny watching a bunch of six-year old kids donned with oversized helmets and so many clothes that when they fell, they bounced and could not right themselves.

Have you ever skated on a frozen lake? It sounds different than skating upon an indoor rink. The blade of the skate cuts into the ice and reverberates upon the water below. When it's really cold, it sounds like cutting steel.

And ice creaks and moans. As temperatures change, the ice expands and contracts. I guess that's the technical reason, but when your out skating and the ice pops, the sound echoing along the sheet and through the water, it sounds haunted.

Living in the north, you knew that winter had finally settled in when the ice houses began to appear on the lakes. I guess folks from the south never think about how those ice houses get out there, so one day when my Texas-raised bride and I were in Wisconsin visiting my family I showed her. We went down to Lake Mendota and I took the car right out onto the lake. Poor girl freaked like I'd signed her death sentence. After a donut or two, I took her ashore where in her mind the ground was firmer.

Not many folks driving onto the lakes in Texas. Occasionally, they'll drive into the lakes when they forget to set the brake while backing the boat trailer into the water.

I hope you will take time this season to hearken back to the joys of your childhood winters and Christmases and give thanks to God for such delicious experiences.

And if you get the chance to skate on a lake, don't pass it by... no matter how cold!

(In the second photo, Mille Lacs Lake has what appears to be roads but are just routes traced through the snow and onto the ice by cars & trucks getting out to their ice houses)