The 42nd Parallel

The Camera Eye (7)

skating on the pond next the silver company’s mills where there was a funny fuzzy smell from the dump whale-oil soap somebody said it was that they used in cleaning the silver knives and spoons and forks putting shine on them for sale there was shine on the ice early black ice that rang like a sawblade just scratched white by the first skaters I couldn’t learn to skate and kept falling down look out for the muckers everybody said bohunk and polak kids put stones in their snowballs write dirty words up on walls do dirty things up alleys their folks work in the mills

we clean young American Rover Boys handy with tools Deerslayers played hockey Boy Scouts and cut figure eights on the ice Achilles Ajax Agamemnon I couldn’t learn to skate and kept falling down