Growing up in "small town" west Texas has it's charms like no other. Unfortunately, it also causes some "only years of therapy can help" scarring. This is one of those types of episodes...
As a child in a small town, you only see big city type entertainment on one of the 3, make sure the rabbit ears antena and tin foil are pointing just right, TV channels. Even if we could have afforded cable, there was no way it would actually reach to our little rural town.
So, imagine the anticipation and excitement felt by all the children when it was announced the "Daughters of the Republic of Texas presents Fancy Figure Skating Tour" was coming to our little west Texas town! Everyone was in line to buy tickets, gazing at the posters displaying shiny costumes on beautiful people, ON ICE! No one seemed to question where this actual ice rink was going to be located or how it was going to be installed. We were going to see some big city type entertainment!
So on the night of the performance, the whole town turns out to behold this majestic display in complete awe. Somehow this travelling band of ice gypsies had transformed our 4H ag barn/sherriff's posse rodeo arena into a mystical winter wonderland. Although, it still smelled of dust and horse poop, none of us kids seem to notice, we were enthralled! We had spent weeks talking about this night and how we wanted to be just like the beautiful people on the poster, dancing and spinning ourselves silly, on roller skates. I can't say I knew what ice skates actually looked like.
The arena lights dim and the music starts, and with the audible collective gasp of the audience, the show began. Three figures emerged onto the ice, somewhat in sync, but more so, not. No mind, the flashing lights were catching the sequins and jewels of the costumes and spraying sparkles throughout the arena, like sunbursts flying out of diamonds. I was on the edge of my front row seat, almost jumping out of my skin, I was so excited I was forgetting to breath!
The lights instantly flood the arena, however, this time the audible collective gasp of the audience is one of pure shock! The 3 figures on the ice were not what they appeared to be....yes, they had on sparkly, shiny costumes, but in the full light, it was painfully obvious 2 of them might have been the actual, original Daughters of the Republic of Texas and might have even started this little show at the Battle of San Jacinto! To say they were old was an understatement, they were ELDERLY..
The 3rd lady appeared to have eaten her way to this performance. I didn't know there was that much sequins and spandex-like material in all the world, much less in such a God awful day-glo orange color!! What's worse, it wasn't covering what it should have been covering. Impressionable young children should not see that much skin on such a large person! Come to think of it, NO ONE should!
My excitement was quickly fading to pure uncertainty. What was I witnessing? And did the 2nd lady just pull a flask out of her left skate and take a swig? No wonder they were a little out of sync, geriatric figure skater #2 was three sheets to the wind and lady #3 had just caught sight of the cotton candy vendor and was about to come barreling through the crowd to make his acquaintance. I didn't know if I should feel sorry for the vendor or for the ice skates this woman was wearing...I don't think the strongest, galvanized steel in the world could hold up under that kind of pressure.
After what seemed like years of bearing painful witness to that performance, it ended with ladies #1 and #3 scooping up sloshed lady #2, who had since polished off left skate flask and was now working on right skate flask, while somehow combining a crawl and a butt-scoot timed perfectly to the music.
The lights go dim again, surely the second act is going to be better....
When the lights come on, there is a lone man standing center ice. This man is pencil thin, you could almost see through him, he's so skinny. Lady #3 from the previous act is probably starving this poor fellow out of his food. Speaking of "large Marge"...here she comes, skating out towards him...what factory in the world has the capacity to produce so MUCH hideously colored spandex and how the holy hell could they afford to do so?? This was a color of green that reminded me of a mix between pine trees and baby food smashed peas, if that's possible!
Marge is now bent slightly, positioning herself like a bull about to charge the bull fighter, aimed right at ghost-thin man. If ever there was a time for a child to have her eyes covered to avoid seeing this monstrosity, this was it! But I couldn't turn away and no one was attempting to cover my eyes. Everyone in the audience was hypnotized by what was about to happen and we all knew it was NOT going to fair well.
"Swwwooosshhh" somehow Marge managed to launch herself with such velocity she actually left the ice and was airborne! Ghost-thin man braced himself as best as his 67lb body could...Mother of GOD, he actually caught her! The hush of the crowd was so silent, you could actually hear his arms, spine and legs snap, crackle and pop! What's more, the fellow didn't crumble under Marge! Instead, he took hold and began to spin. As demented as it sounds, he did so with such grace and poise, it was astounding! You would have thought he had the strength of Hercules! That is, until his skate caught something on the ice and got hung up. Man oh man, what followed was talked about for DAYS in our little town!
In the span of about .045ths of a second, Ghost-thin man disappeared completely under the pine tree, baby food pea colored mass of toppling sequins and spandex, which sent shock waves rippling over the ice when it finally came crashing down. Yet, somehow he survived and wiggled his way out from under Marge, sprang up, threw his hands up in a finale type pose, took a bow to one side of the area, spun on his broken skate and did the same for the other side. Then hobbled off the ice, to what I assume would be years of physical therapy and a borderline addiction to pain pills, poor guy!
Marge was shaking off the daze when she finally realized what happened. Evidently, she had put so much thrust in her airborne launch, it caused a few buttons and sequins to burst from the seams of her costume. Unfortunately, Ghost-thin man's skate caught one of the buttons, causing the entire episode. Marge attempted a graceful bow-out as Ghost-thin man had, but she was too busy gathering up pieces of her costume for it to be sincere.
Needless to say, the rest of the performance was somewhat uneventful after the first two acts. But I will forever have that memory burned in my brain, therefore, never allowing my children to ever set foot in a figure skating performance, ever! From then on, any time someone mentioned a "travelling performance", our entire town would politely say "no thank you" and lock all doors and windows. We didn't need that big city entertainment, we were just fine with our 3 channels on the TV, thank you very much.
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