At the Webster Rink circa 1966 my brother Mark, me and brother Jim.

ESCANABA — Ice skating is a magical thing.

Lace up the skates and for a while it’s like you have wings on the bottom of your feet!

Skating free and gliding under the stars in the frigid air are wonderful winter memories. Everybody can vividly recall the first time they tried ice skating.

For me it was on the big frozen puddle in the low spot of my childhood back yard. A hand-me-down pair of double runners launched me across the bumpy ice.

Weeeee! It was fun until I landed on my backside. But old fashioned snow pants and layers of warm wool clothing cushioned the crash.

Soon, I was ready to tag along with my Dad and older brothers. How many of you remember the green warming shack near the “old” Webster School?

The Webster ice rink was in walking distance of my home, so many winter nights were spent there.

My Dad loved to skate. Back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Dad played hockey for the Gladstone Indians, so naturally when he had kids of his own it was his job to take them skating.

My Mom did not skate at all, but occasionally she’d come and take pictures of us playing on the ice and she would encourage us to stay upright.

The greatest fun was when my Dad and Uncle Al Hendrickson would race around the ice rink with all of us cousins chasing after them.

Once in a while, we would pack up the car and head to the Royce Ice Rink on the south side of Escanaba and have hot cocoa at home for an after skating treat.

Escanaba has provided hours of fun ice time over the years in a number of locations. Where do you remember ice skating as a kid?

My mother would talk about when she was a kid, there was an ice rink right next to her family home on the 1400 block of Sheridan Road. Signs advertising cigarettes separated the rink from the houses.

Escanaba had one of its first ice show on a rink in Ludington Park in 1936. Later the ice shows moved to the old exhibition building at the fairgrounds where they would come to be known as “the largest small town ice show in the world”.

Life magazine even did a story about the Escanaba Ice Review one year.

Ogden Avenue had a nice little neighborhood rink for many years. And for some years skating was done in the new exhibition building on the U.P. State Fairgrounds. Today blades still glide across the ice in Esky at the Catherine Bonifas Civic Center rink. The Wells Sports Complex just north of town provides open skating year round.

Do you recall the first time you skated on a pond, or lake or a rink? Enjoy some ice time if you can or else watch some on the Winter Olympics on TV.

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.