One of my favorite things as a kid was sliding face first
down a hill of freshly packed snow.
Sometimes even on a sled.
Well, mostly on a sled…my flexible flyer to be specific.
At least I think it was a Flexible Flyer.
Now that I think of it, it might have been a Flexible Flyer
knock off from Woolworths, because I’m not having too many flexible memories
other than a lot of crashing into trees and light poles.
But that was more than half the fun…at least for me.
In fact sleigh riding is one of my top three favorite winter
memories.
The other two are filling my pockets with snow…and filling my
cousin’s pocket with snow.
Good times!
I remember the Christmas I found that oddly shaped, package
tucked under the tree, like it was yesterday. I was so unaware, that I hadn’t a
clue what it could be.
Let’s see…about four
feet long by a foot wide.
Maybe it was a
football!
What?
I was 6…I had spacial recognition issues…undiagnosed.
My mom and dad watched as I curiously twisted and turned the
package this way and that, as I was prone to do with all my plunder, wanting to
savor each and every holiday moment to its fullest extent…which could take a
while, seeing as I had about 200 hundred or so presents to work my way through...some
of them even mine.
“Maybe it’s a train
set!”
“Why don’t you just
open it instead of guessing?” my mom would say, hoping to start breakfast
sometime before noon.
“Or an Easy Bake
Oven!”
What?
I liked to bake.
Eventually my dad decided to “help” me open this peculiarly wrapped item, and lo and
behold…there it was: a shiny new sled.
Much sleeker and shiner than the my old sled—which my gramps
picked up at a rummage sale—that still had the remnants of a name carved into
it…something like “Joe’s Mud” or Moe’s Tub” or “Slow Dud”.
Something like that.
I always thought it was an odd thing to write on a sled, but
who’s to judge?
Anyway, no one was really sure what it meant exactly, other
than rust doesn’t slide very well on snow.
But not my brand new Inflexible Flyer.
My brand new Inflexible Flyer really could fly…over Hill and
Dale…and sometimes Mike, Phil Pam and Wendy…my other sledding buddies.
Of course one needs a hill and some snow before one can
fully enjoy the wonders of the sleigh.
The hill part was easy since I lived near the park where
there were actually three hills, varying in degrees of difficulty.
The snow part was a little trickier, though…especially when
you’re waiting for it, as if it were another Christmas day.
But, just as Christmas always arrived, sooner or later, a
nice fluffy blanket of virgin powder would drop from the sky and off to the park we’d go, sleds in tow.
I mentioned there were three hills with varying degrees of
difficulty.
The first was nothing more than a bunny hill, but a good
starting point for the novice sledder.
You just had to watch out for…or at least be aware of… the
small little brook that ran across the bottom of this short incline.
Which I did for the most part…most of the time…but it was
super cool to be able to stand your frozen snowsuit up in the corner when you
came home.
The second hill, across the way from the first hill, was a
little steeper in nature, but without the brook to worry about. However, it
backed up to a large 10 foot high stone wall, so there was very little wiggle
room to maneuver along the top ridge.
And if the hill happened to be icy slick that day, as it often was after
a couple of hundred kids stomped all over it, many a sled farer was known to
begin his trip down the hill
prematurely, with or without his sled.
Then of course, even if your ride was successful, and you managed
to slide all the way across the park…getting back up the hill could be
problematic…unless you were outfitted by the Mt. Kilimanjaro base camp team.
The final hill was off to the side, but really only suited for the big boys, or
the little boys with a death wish…or at least a wish to walk around with a limp
and a cauliflower ear for several days.
Narrow and steep, it required a steady hand and a really,
really flexible flyer to maneuver around the multiple pines strewn all about;
not to mention the wooden backstops attached to the rear of the horse shoe
pits.
I didn’t worry too much about those wooden backstops,
however, since I was usually jammed, sled and all, between the branches of a
balsam fir tree, way before I made it down that far.
Still, every once in a while I managed to navigate those menacing
trees and the first row of horseshoe
barriers…and I can’t tell you what a thrill that was.
Until, of course, I hit the second row of wooden barriers
and jettisoned, sans sled, into yet another pine.
Which I found oddly exhilarating.
As did my mom, who would often get a little woozy after I
limped in the door with a black eye and something that once resembled an ear.
Needless to say, I went through a lot of sleds in my youth, and
my mom a lot of novenas.
Not sure why.
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