[img]2390|right|||no_popup[/img]Once you become accustomed to the suddenly shivering chill, as I did early this afternoon, the Culver City Ice Arena resembles any other 52-year-old beloved rink in America that, for financial reasons, is due to permanently die and crawl into its frozen coffin at 10:30 Sunday evening.
Out on the ice at 12:45, a hockey scrum between players, sporting colorful mix-and-match jerseys, innocently was under way.
Until an errant puck suddenly roared into the nearby glass, shrinking my life by five years and 24 minutes.
In the 20 years since my last visit, I had forgotten the whiteness of the interior, reminding me of old-fashioned styles during my kidhood.
A girl in the skates compartment said I would find John Jackson, the CEO, up the stairs, second door. If Macy’s used this aging stairway, its entire inventory would be on the ground floor. Or its clientele would transfer to Target.
Shannon, the skating school director, occupies the first office upstairs, her mother, Barbara, Mr. Jackson’s administrative assistant, the second.
The Ritz might sneer, but the furnishings and atmosphere are pure down-home, and have been since 1962.
Barbara returned shortly. She said Mr. Jackson would see me.
A tall, quiet gentleman in his upper 70s, Mr. Jackson’s office may be the only computer-free business enclosure on the Westside.
He was shmoozing, in understated tones, with an old military pal from Orange County when I entered.
Formerly an offensive line coach at USC, the walls are dotted with drawings of the premium Trojans when he served on Coach John Robinson’s staff, the first time Mr. Robinson was hired.
With enviable politeness, soft-spoken Mr. Jackson declined to be interviewed.
Normally this would be a provocative call. Not so with the courtly executive director of the Ice Arena who has owned the building – as distinct from the property – for the past seven years.
Departing the Trojans and hooking up with the late Lakers/Kings owner Jerry Buss in the early 1980s, Mr. Jackson has been overseeing the Ice Arena for 30 years, coincidentally, as long as Barbara has been his administrative assistant.
Mr. Jackson never will forget his 78th birthday next Tuesday.
No, he said, it will not be a celebratory occasion. What’s to whoop it up about when your job of 30 years is being grounded into a sheet of ice on Sunday evening once the final skater steps away?
Two years shy of 80, “It’s tough to find a job at my age,” he says.
Mr. Jackson’s agreement calls for him to be at the Ice Arena until Feb. 15.
Then he will pass into the far more restrictive world of Social Security, rather than presiding over an unremarkable looking building, with a remarkable history, where almost 5,000 thrilled but saddened skaters pass through every week.
Mournful hollowness, that officially starts on Monday, easily could be mistaken for deathly silence.
John Jackson is too young to embrace emptiness at his age.
