The ice was a little soft at the Riverfront Park rink this morning.

It was perfectly fine for skating. They do a good job at the Ice Palace. Someone who hasn't skated much wouldn't even notice. And with the weather we're having, it certainly was to be expected.

There are two schools of thought about whether soft ice makes skating easier, if not as efficient physics-wise. But I suspect it didn't seem soft to the kids who fell. And fall, several of them did.

It's a wonder anyone ever learns to ice skate, the joys of going down hard on an unyielding surface being limited as they are.

For young children, though, the falling distance isn't all that great. So most of them keep getting back up. (A few crawl off and never look back.)

I wanted to tell this one little boy (a repeat faller) that he really had guts. But it was apparent that he was concentrating and I didn't want to distract him.

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