Christmas lights and love

I am a "Hockey Grandma" and for what it is worth, here is an experience I wrote about in 2001. So this won't get me to be a candidate for the vice presidency, which I wouldn't want or qualify for anyway, but I thought I would share it here.

The Hockey Game

By Carol Troestler, Christmas Letter 2001

It was 6:00 AM and we were on our way to the Hartmeyer Ice Arena in Madison with our seven-year-old grandson, Kevin, for a hockey game. His father, the present American Airlines pilot in the family, was in Dallas, had expected to be home, but had not arrived yet, and here we were.

It was still very dark out, but to my amazement, homes, businesses and streetlights of the small towns and countryside we passed through all had their Christmas lights on. There were few other lights as not too many people were up at this early hour on a Saturday. What a beautiful unexpected early morning delight! It was just lots and lots of sparkling lights in this still dark morning. Kevin’s favorite was a shooting star group of lights in Prairie du Sac.

Then we arrived at the arena. We followed the crowd of adults and seven year olds to a “dressing room” where the players (boys and girls) donned the 100 pieces (okay, I am exaggerating just a little) of equipment they had each brought along in huge bags. Kevin completed his outfit with skates, gloves, helmet and stick and went and sat on the bench by the wall with the other members of his team, There before my eyes were hundreds and hundreds of pieces of equipment worn by 10 seven year olds with eager faces smiling behind the grids of their helmets.

The coach asked what was most important and they all shouted in unison “listen!” Then the coach asked what was the most important thing they should do in the game, and they shouted “listen” again, until he said it was to “have fun” and then they all shouted together “have fun," and then he said they needed to skate fast and they all shouted “skate fast." He mentioned something about the “blue line," but after a husband and three sons and now a few grandchildren in hockey I still don’t quite understand the “blue line."

Next they all mashed their now heavily protected and padded little bodies together in a circle and all put their hands together and then shouted some more words in unison I did not quite understand and off they went.

We proceeded into the stands as about 20 little hockey players skated fast across the ice warming up for their game. Kevin took a spin by the stands and looked up to see where we were. I gave him a wave and he raised his stick in a hockey player’s sign of recognition.

The game began, and for an hour the players skated fast to the shouted encouragement and suggestions of coaches and parents. The final score was 2 to 3.

At the end of the game, each team formed a long line, the players took off their gloves from their right hands and put them on the top of their sticks, and gave each member of the other team a high five as they skated past.

Kevin quickly removed his equipment, and we left the arena. The sun had come up and the lights were out. Usually we go somewhere just before dark and come out to a night sky. This day we went somewhere when it was still dark lit by Christmas lights and came out to the light of day.

Since September I find myself in a state of melancholy. It has been difficult to think of shopping and decorating and writing this epistle. But this morning’s hockey trek was anything but melancholic and I found myself sitting down to write with the warmth of Christmas light and love.

So I think I will join these bedecked hockey players in the joy of seeing Christmas lights and listening and having fun and skating fast and watching out for the blue line. The first part sounds simple enough, something I can handle these days. But skating fast is part of my very distant past and I’m still trying to understand the blue line thing.

My daughter, Maria, told me about the blue line the next day when we got together to bake cookies. Her daughter, Kelly, also plays hockey. Maria told me enthusiastically, “You can just feel it. There is a lot of tension and then a sigh of relief as the team gets the puck over the blue line!”

You can just feel it. Maybe that’s it. I just need to stop trying to understand and just feel it: the lights and hope and promise and joy that came to the world on the first Christmas with the birth of the baby Jesus that is shown in the faces of these children and the magic of the early morning Christmas lights and the love that was felt this day on a pilgrimage to an early morning hockey game.

Carol posted this on another thread but I thought it deserved a thread of its own.

Thanks for the uplifting story, Carol! I'm hoping to soon be in that "feel good" zone of Christmas, and your post is helping me get there.

I agree, it is a feel good story, and I had a momentary flash of Christmas spirit, which is unusual these days. I don't always get the 'spirit' right away. Sometimes you will find me finally humming Christmas Carols in February. Guess I am a little slow these days. To all the hockey Moms and Grandmoms, I send out a cheery wish for lots of lights and love.

And the wish goes out to Moms, Dads, and all grandparents as well, even if they aren't 'hockey folks'.

In all the talk lately about a certain "hockey mom," I kept thinking about this Christmas letter about being a "hockey grandma," and what it is really like.

My daughter is a "hockey mom" and worked to start a league for girls, although her daughter liked playing hockey with the "guys."

My daughter has already informed me that there is a ramp at the ice rink, since I still can't go up stairs. She will be sending a schedule.

Carol

It takes so much dedication to be involved with hockey. Those cold and early morning practices and games! My son wanted to play hockey--for a second! There was no way I was going to be able to pull that one off and luckily he accepted the fact. He went wholeheartedly into soccer--a much warmer sport!

Carol,
a good story. You made it interesting.
No, I don't think a Hockey Mom, Grandma or whatever is a qualification for the presidency, but it does qualify one to be young again.

Carol,

I would much prefer you to be the Vice presient to Palin. Your being a hocky grandmother and her being a hocky mom do not matter to me.

My problem wth her stemmed fom her cocky smartmouthed attitude towards the media, Biden, Obama and the truth.

I have high regard for the truth. She does not know or tell the truth.

My opinion.

Helen,

My daughter got so involved in hockey, a super hockey mom, she got a little part time job so she could have an excuse not to get more involved. She does have a regular job but is a very energetic woman.

Abe,

Thank you. Writing can make one feel young again, no matter what.

Alice,

That upset me also about Sarah Palin. She took many things out of context, and checking on the whole story changed the emphasis of her remarks.

Carol

If you l want to see something funny, watch Keuth Olberman discuss Sarah Palin.

I hope he does not have a stroke.

Generally I stick to CNN News as I find it more middle of the road than Fox or MSNBC--for entertainment I watch the others.

I laugh until I cry--good for me.

Pallin may be found to have saved my life and health.
I copied Brenda's spider.

I also get a kick out of Olberman and Chris Matthews. Like Alice, I prefer CNN for unbiased reporting but watching Olberman is great fun. His "Worst Person in the World" segment is a blast.

That is a great story Carol. I love the glow of Christmas lights and the warmth that they convey. I think that hockey families are a dedicated bunch, and I can remember when my brother played and we all trooped to the rink to cheer him on. The rinks were generally outside so there was also a lot of hot chocolate.

Dear Carol,
I love the warmth of your heart. You wrote that story with such love and the remembering must have warmed you all over again.

It is something the way lights in the dark affect a person. Late last night, after reading your letter, I lay there in my warm bed in the dark and thought about those lights, the way they would glow against the snow, if it was snowing, crispness of the colors of the lights in the darkness of the hours before daylight.
I was taken back to one night in the back of an old pick up truck. It was in the late 40's. Highway 66. Riding along in the back of that truck, cold to the bones, stars everywhere. Off to the left hand side was one lone electric light in one lone house. I watched that cheerful light for a long, long way. It flickered through the trees and shined so long. In my child mind, I imagined the people who lived there who lived in that room with that lovely light. I imagined them warm.
Now that I am grown, and a little older, I know that that one lone light did not mean they were warm. Funny how some little thing stands out in my mind after all these years. I can remember the way the sky was with the stars, each tree that passed in front of that lone light stands out as a shadow the moon cast.
Last night, I closed my eyes and saw that lone light moving with the motion of that old truck on that night 60 years ago in perfect detail.

I was probably four years old then. I wonder if we forget how children of 4 remember things with perfect recall at 65 years old.

I wonder if we are not born with perfect vision to see the world around us and are inflicted with myopathy through the years we have to tunnel our visions to make a living.

I am sure there is no cure for that loss of innocence.

Love,
Betty

Wonderful story, Carol.
I have to say; as a southern gal, I have no clue when it comes to hockey. We had a league here in town for a few years, and I attended a couple of games. It has to be more fun with younger players--the older ones made it look like a rowdy night at a bad beer joint.

Every year, we take my elderly mother to see the lights. It is one of my favorite parts of the holidays. A neighborhood near mine goes all out. Small wonder they don't blow a substation.