The Man At Strauss

[Lake]

The Man At Strauss

A sleety day. We slid into a sports store, hoping the skates could be stretched to a half size larger. We waited patiently for Don, the only one at Strauss who knew the trade.

Fifteen minutes passed. To save six hundred bucks, in patience we waited. Then an old man loomed beside me; his head drooped low to his chest, eyes watery, back hunched.

“Are you looking for me? What can I do for you? ” He asked.

“Are you Don? Don’t you have an apprentice? ” I answered.

Trudging back with a ruler, he measured the boots, eyes so close to the readings. My daughter sat quietly on the bench to try on the stretched skates. Bandy-legged, Don, one hand on the floor, knelt down with one leg first, then the other. The shoelace seemed so delicate in his knuckle protruding hands. He fastened it nonetheless.

Looking up, he asked, “How do you feel now?”

“Better.” Replied my daughter.

“Do you still feel the tightness around your toes? The bumps on your heels? ”

I was about to say, that’s good enough.

But Don insisted: “Tell me, how would you grade it— better, worse, good, pretty good? ”

I watched him rise to his feet with more difficulty than he knelt down. I didn’t come up to help him; instead, I turned my head away, slightly. Can you imagine a man of his age working on a such heavy-snow day?

“Here is something for you, Don.” I put some change in his hand, gratefully.

“Thank you!” He winked at my daughter at the door. A glint in his eyes, a stretch of one’s lifespan.

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the trouble with poetry is that it encourages the writing of more poetry -- Billy Collins