It’s That Time of Year Again

Now that I am older, snow is just another four letter word. It’s appearing after such a long run of sunny warm days is an insult to my system. Some people despise the word, while others love it. Me, I just tolerate it, but not caring for the cold winds that accompanies it. It does seem strange that when we were children, the snow didn’t bother s nearly as much and we even looked forward to its return. The snow provided all the materials that we needed to build snowmen, snow forts, igloos, snow caves, have snowball fights and of course hours of sledding. Our play outfits were layer after layer of normal clothes almost to the point that they restricted breathing and limited movement.

When I was a kid, we didn’t own skis or snow boards. Sleds were a necessity. We were proud of our Flexible Flyers, but weren’t always satisfied, often trying to build toboggans from pieces of wood, straightened, used nails, and scraps of metal. The first toboggan I can recall helping to build started with a wide plank, a car’s steering wheel, and the chrome trim from several scrapped vehicles for runners. Constructing it was a formidable accomplishment. The bulky contraption did slide fairly well downhill, but it took all of us to tug and drag it back up the hill because of its weight. The toboggan wasn’t very pretty to look at and was of the Little Rascal, piecemeal design.

The second toboggan that we made several years later was much lighter. It was a ten feet long sheet of corrugated metal roofing. Curling back the one end, it made an almost perfect toboggan, light and speedy.

As kids, we would wake up to a snow storm and would huddle around the black and white television set, hoping and praying for a school cancelation. The anticipated announcement would give us a twenty-four hour reprieve from teachers, books, and homework. It allowed another day for us to revel in the winter wonderland.