The Calico Pen: No such word as 'can't' for youth or elders

The 2010 Winter Olympics reminded me that both the haves and the have-nots can hope for a place on the podium, but I suspect that those going home with a medal believed most in their impossible dreams.

When I was growing up my dad told me there was no such word as “can’t,” and when, at the age of 7, I climbed on a yearling steer in my first rodeo, I believed him.

These days I straddle urban moguls, snow berms left by city snowplows, with my walking stick that I winterized with an ice pick tip to retrieve the mail. The winter games, for this senior citizen, who still has a can-do philosophy offers no medals, only safe passage.

When I was a kid, my friends and I tested the thickness of the ice on the pond and when it was safe, we swapped poor fitting skates from the year before and ventured forth on wobbly ankles. When I outgrew the double-blade skates that strapped onto my shoes, I traded those for shoe-skates and learned to skate backwards and make figure-eights on the ice.

We never heard of a sled called a luge, but we constructed downhill snow chutes for our wooden sleds and discovered if I threw my self belly-flop style on the sled I could go faster. I also discovered that when I put my tongue on the metal part of the sled it was stuck there. A friend held the sled up for me and walked to her house, with my tongue still attached, where her mother separated me from the sled with some warm water.

My quest for fame and medals as a skier was thwarted by my mother – who did believe in the word “can’t.” Santa brought me skis and I soon was swooshing down a small hill in our neighborhood. Then I tried jumping from a wooden box to “catch some air” before going down the hill. My dad hooked a towrope to the back of his car and pulled me around our rural roads but my own personal slalom ended when I had to let go of the rope and ski off the road to get out of the way of an oncoming car.

Years later, long past my rite of passage into AARP membership, I found a pair of cross-country skis at a garage sale. I thought, “Why not?” I hid the skis at our cabin and waited for a day when I was alone to try them out. My dog knew something special was taking place and she barked happily, as I clamped the binders on.

With my poles in hand and 90-degree knees, I pushed both skis forward and fell on my butt where I stayed for a long time. I didn’t know how to get the skis off and I couldn’t stand up. I rolled around in the snow and my dogs whined and licked at my face until I made my way to a fence post. When I was standing, again, I tried pushing the skis one at a time and after awhile I could slowly make my way back and forth across the flat surface in our driveway without returning to the fence post.

A couple of weeks later when we gathered at the cabin for a weekend with our family, I skied down to the main road to greet them. Everyone was amazed and the grandchildren were surprised that their old granny could do such a thing.

Such are the lessons from the elders. Maybe there is no such word as “can’t.”

(Carol Holoboff is a former Libby resident who now writes her column from Great Falls).