One Friday afternoon, just after school let out, I heard a knock at my front door. There, on my front porch stood a short, blond-haired girl, probably around eight years old. She was incredibly dressed in a purple ice-skating outfit, complete with a cute little pink hat and furry white pompoms on the ends of the ties. She had a tray of cookies strapped from her neck, just like the old-fashioned cigar girls had, and there were a stack of boxed cookies on it. She was bright and perky, and said she was selling cookies to help raise money for the ice rink. What ice rink? I looked at her sceptically, whereupon she said I could try a cookie for free as an incentive. I nodded, and she said “They go better with milk”.

I invited her in, and she clomped into the kitchen in her ice skates, and hopped up on a chair. Then she opened a box of Russky cookies, and I poured two glasses of milk, smiling as I watched the little legs swinging back and forth under the table. I’d never heard of Russky cookies before, but I dunked one in my glass of milk. They were made of two long biscuits, and sandwiched between them was a cherry cream filling. Yum! These were great! I bought two boxes from her on the spot. As we dipped and munched she chatted excitedly about building a covered ice rink on Gabriola. Why hadn’t I heard of this before? Well, it was March, so maybe the plans were inspired by the 2010 Olympics.

As we talked, I found out that she had two brothers, both in hockey and they were selling cookies, too. Again I thought, ‘What ice rink?’, but not wanting to be ignorant of something so obviously important, I didn’t ask. It was embarrassing that I did not know where our ice rink was to be, so I just nodded along as she talked. She had dreams of being in the real Olympics one day, and her eyes sparkled. I found myself caught up in her excitement, and actually offered to help campaign for the rink, and certainly even write an article about it in the Flying Shingle, hard copy and on the web. As an extra show of support I bought three more boxes of cookies. In my enthusiasm, I suggested we might be able to elicit donations from some of our local businesses, and we even went so far as to muse over names for the arena. “Russky Dome” seemed a good choice.

We had worked our way through the first box of cookies, so I bought two more, and we chatted on. Mostly we discussed what improvements were realistically needed to bring our existing rink up to standard. What rink, where? A full hour later, and with only four boxes of cookies left to sell, she said it was really time to go and get back on the campaign trail. In greater enthusiasm for her project I bought the remaining four boxes.

At $4.50 each they were a steal! So, let’s see, that would be a total of 11 boxes. I’m proud to say that I supported the new ice rink by buying almost $50.00 worth of the yummiest cookies I have ever tasted. I felt like I had always known this kid, gave her a hug as she left, and then smiled as she clomped her way up the driveway. Now there went one smart kid!

In my usual waking blur, I surfaced slowly, and just vaguely remembered the dream. I was perplexed as to where that it came from, but it vaporised quickly, as many dreams do. I ambled to the kitchen, made a pot of my favourite dark Cuban coffee, and then sat down to enjoy a cup while I read the newspaper, and absentmindedly dunked a Russky cookie in my coffee.

February 23, 2010

Carol Martin (www.RealEstateOnGabriola.com) is a lover of people, quirks, philosophy, and the humour in most of what passes her by. Carol offers views of island-life on island-time, truths and stories with a twist, and experiences as a Realtor and Gabriolan. An eight year resident of Gabriola, when Carol says: “Come for a visit; stay a lifetime”, she literally means it.