Mike Sinclair

    I  grew up at 49th and Mercier, a block from Brush Creek. Brush Creek was where we would play tennis, football, and most memorably, war — a game consisting of dividing into two groups and throwing rock-hard green walnuts, that were smaller than a baseball but larger than a golf ball, at each other until someone got hurt.
   When I was around 13, one of the things I wanted to be was a speed-skater, how I decided that I don't remember. I do remember that somehow I got a pair of second-hand hockey skates. At that time, my section of Brush Creek was contained, except during heavy rains, into an 18 inch wide concrete channel that ran from my neighborhood east to at least Troost. The concrete channel and the 30 feet of concrete on either side was provided by the Ready-Mixed Concrete Company, a company owned by Kansas City's foremost political boss, Tom Pendergast.
   During the cold parts of winter, that 18 inch wide stream of ice was my speed skating course. There, alone, I could pretend I was on a frozen canal in Europe. I would skate trying to replicate the form I'd learned watching the winter olympics. I would skate a big curved line, from 50th street to Troost and back, until my feet were frozen.