“Daily Post Prompt: Never Again – Have you ever gone to a new place or tried a new experience and thought to yourself, “I’m never doing that again!” Tell us about it.”
On Saturday, I saw this photo on Facebook that brought back a memory for me. Also on that day, I read the above prompt from the Daily Post. So I couldn’t resist sharing said event from my childhood.
My friend Nancy, my younger sister Lynn and I were walking home from school one late afternoon in St. John’s, when we noticed from the Boulevard the many ice pans on the surface of Quidi Vidi Lake. I think it might have been spring thaw.
Quicker than you can say “last one in is a rotten egg,” the three of us ran down to the lake’s edge, dropped our book-bags on the shore, and proceeded to jump from ice pan to ice pan across the surface of the deep water. Not once did either of us think anything could go wrong. I guess we were so young and naive, we had no fear of the risk we were taking.
Luckily, Nancy’s father happened to drive along the Boulevard while we were playing there. Before we knew it, we were swiftly ordered into his car and driven home. At the time, we didn’t feel so lucky, but I shudder at the thought of what could have gone down if he hadn’t. Perhaps all of us!
Of course, our parents were outraged and we all received our punishment. The next time I saw my friend Nancy, she told me that her father gave her a good spanking.
“And that was it?” I asked, incredulous. My parents didn’t give spankings as discipline. They knew what really hurt: grounding my sister and me for a full week. No outdoors for seven days except to go to school.
I remember thinking at the time that Nancy had gotten off easy compared to us. Yes, she’d endured a spanking, but at least her suffering was “behind” her. 😉
Now I realize Mom and Dad had wanted us to appreciate how dangerous our activity was, by giving us a whole week to think about it. Never again did we dare to risk drowning by “copying pans.”
*copy: To jump from one floating pan of ice to another in a children’s game of following or copying a leader when the ice is breaking up in spring in a cove or harbour. A game of follow-my-leader over the broken ice, every cake of which, it may be, sinks under the weight of a lad. It is a training for the perilous work of seal hunting, which came later in the life of Newfoundlanders. You will see the merry young lads ‘copying’ as they call it—jumping from pan to pan till far out in the Cove in fearless rivalry. ~ Dictionary of Newfoundland English
Did you ever jump on ice pans when you were a kid?
Have you ever done something new and regretted it?
Jennifer's Journal 
I would have been right there with you, due to the fact we never had snow and thought it a magical thing in movies and such. I bet you never forgot that lesson though and you never did it again did you Jennifer.
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Yes, Kath, I can imagine you joining us on the ice back in the day, you fun-lover you. 🙂
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Use to do a lot of crazy things before I had kids. Its my next blog post when I find some time to write it.
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I look forward to it.
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Struggling to find the time Jennifer still very hot here. Concentrating on picture book saps all my creativity but hope to get to the blog soon.
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I understand. It isn’t hot here but I feel like I’m being pulled in several directions at once.
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We don’t have ice pans Jennifer – I can see why it would have been fun as a child, but yes, thank goodness you didn’t have to find out how dangerous it was 🙂
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Yes, Andrea; thank heavens we weren’t victims of a tragedy that afternoon. I’m still shaking my head as to why we didn’t recognize the danger.
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That looks like a huge risk to have taken. It sounds like the ‘never go down to the dam’ story I would drum into my children and yet, they did (or so they told me years later).
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Goes to show how children don’t always listen. Then, some are lucky and others pay dearly for their disobedience. My husband Paul said he and his friends were the same way: warned not to go near the “landwash” but they often went there anyway. In one instance his older brother saved him from drowning!
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Eeek! That looks and sounds so dangerous! I know I did dangerous things when I was a kid, but nothing like that! But of course, now we have a huge hill behind our house (steep and like a ski slope) and when it gets icy, that’s when my kids (and all the kids in the neighborhood) say the conditions are best. Some big kids went down in a kayak the year we moved in. They hit a house at top speed and put a dent in the siding! I don’t think they were hurt, but I drew the line there with my own kids – no boats on the slope!
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A boat for sliding, well that’s a new one for me. On our local news last week they shared a video of three people sliding in a pickup truck’s liner. It looked quite cool, actually. No crashes into houses though! 🙂
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I grew up on the St Clair river south of Lake Huron, and we always roamed the ice as kids. I learned to ‘read’ the ice from my ice-fishing uncles, and knew how to be reasonably safe. But looking back we did some insanely risky things!
I remember one time when the icebreaker had come through, the slabs had refrozen, mostly. We thought we were still on unbroken ice (between icebreaker’s path and shore) but somehow found ourselves having to leap from floe to floe to get back.
Of course, we never told Mom!
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Our poor mothers! 🙂
Apparently it was a regular pastime for many, years ago. Understandable if your livelihood depended on the seal fishery. Otherwise, yes, insanely risky and foolhardy.
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Saw two young fellows copying pans in Island Harbour, Fogo Island last Easter. Scared the bejesus out of me just to watch. I took a video and got lots of great stories of the right of passage and a few tragic endings too. Great post.
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You want your wits about you that’s for darn sure! Thanks. 🙂
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Yikes! That sounds really dangerous, Jennifer. I guess you were fearless, but I am cringing just reading the description.
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Oh it was! Not to brag, but hard to imagine I was a straight A student too, to make the best of it. Goes to show how children think differently, huh?
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Oh dear, as a parent I’m cringing. Good thing your friend’s father came along when he did.
I’m sure there are many things I’ve done that I won’t do again, but, of course, I can’t think of them now. Ugh. My brain struggles when put on the spot.
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If anything ever comes to you, let me know. Don’t want to be the only blogger who was stupid as a kid! Hee hee, seriously, it was a good thing Nancy’s father came along. I can’t believe the lack of fear we had.
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Oh my–my adult self is aghast at the danger. My child self probably would have joined you. Your poor parents. The relief they must have felt that you had survived!
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I know! When I think of it, it makes me more certain than ever that children do not think the same as adults. Their judgement can be so very askew!
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