Life on Life's Terms: 69. On Thin Ice
69. On Thin Ice
I spoke at a high school the next day. At the end of my presentation I asked for comments and questions. A young man in a Pittsburgh Penguins jersey raised his hand.
“While I would never drink or do drugs,” he said in an exaggerated tone that caused several teachers to roll their eyes, “I know lots of people who do. Nothing bad ever happens to them.”
“You like hockey?” I asked. He nodded.
“Suppose you were going to play on a big lake. If the ice broke as soon as you stepped on it, you’d jump back on shore. The trouble is sometimes, maybe even most times, the ice doesn’t break until you’re over deeper water.”
He smiled and said, “Nobody I know has fallen in.”
“Nobody near you has fallen in, but across the lake you see people disappearing into the ice. How smart are you to continue skating?”
Today I’ll remember if the ice cracked near the shore nobody would fall through.
Life on Life's Terms III (c) 2016 by Ken Montrose
Life on Life's Terms III is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between the characters and anyone you might know is purely coincidental.
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