The skating rink opens today!

I'm excited.

The ice rink near my apartment opens today for the winter season. I absolutely love to skate there after work and on the weekends.

It reminds me of when I was a little kid in my little bitty home town in Texas. Once a year during each summer, a portable skating rink would come to town. As they'd set up the canvas tent and wooden skating surface, I'd just be beside myself waiting for the first day it would open. It was just a few blocks from our house, so I'd go every chance I'd get.

I'd rent my little roller skates and just be a little bandit out there. Of course, this was Texas in the summer time, so you'd really work up a sweat. I'd take a break, gulp down an icy cold Grape Nehi from a bottle (remember those?) and whizz back out on the rink for as long as my dad or mom would let me. I remember that the rink had this tinny-sounding music playing over the loudspeaker, usually On the Bayou.

Jambalya, crawfish pie, me-o, my-o . . .

So, today I feel like I'm six years old again. I'll get to go skating again later today after work. Instead of a wooden skating surface under a canvas tent in a small town, it's on ice under "The Bean" sculpture at Millenium Park. Instead of pausing with a Grape Nehi, it'll be a latte at Starbuck's. The details have changed but the feeling remains the same.

It's good to be a kid again.