When I was a child of eight or ten years old, my parents would take my brother, sister, and I to a frozen pond just outside the city limits. We'd strap on hand-me-down skates and clobber along the ice in random fashion, certainly not making any graceful strides or loop-de-loops. After a couple of hours, we'd climb back into my dad's old pickup truck, bottoms sore from more than one tumble on the ice. But filled with happy spirits, having spent a magical afternoon on the ice in the company of Mom and Dad. Sometimes I still yearn for simpler days such as those.