Memories
of winters past.
By
Merlin Lessler (aka The Old Coot)
It
snowed more and was a lot colder when I was a kid. Back in the 50’s. At least
that’s what us old coots will tell you. But, in spite of our tendency to
exaggerate, we really do know the truth about the weather back then; we spent
all our free time out in it. We hated to be called home for dinner; our mothers
had to threaten us with bodily harm. We couldn’t wait to go back out and spent
the entire meal begging for permission. Our moms would eventually give in and
say, “OK - but only until the street lights come on.” Which in the winter
didn’t give us much time. We quickly bundled up and flew out the back
door.
my sister, Madeline, and me taking a break
And,
boy, were we bundled up: wool coats,
leggings (snow pants), two pairs of socks, leather shoes crammed into buckle
boots, knitted hats, scarves and mittens (mine came every year as a Christmas
present from my “knitting” aunt in Connecticut). There was always a gap between
the end of the mitten and the sleeve of my jacket leaving me with red, raw,
frozen wrists. I never was able to convince her to make the mittens longer.
It
was a wonderland out there, a real life, snow globe. My sisters and I were
lucky; we lived near the top of Chadwick Road (though I never thought so when I
had to push my bike up the hill when I came home from playing in the “flats”
(the cluster of veteran houses and fields at the bottom of the hill). It was a
steep slope, perfect for sled riding (as we called it), as was Denton Road, the
next street over. We were a gang, us kids that lived on the two blocks that
made up our neighborhood. A gang of winter Olympians.
After
a snowstorm the city ash trucks would climb our hill, chains on the tires and a
burly worker standing in the back shoveling ashes onto the road in wide swaths.
We ran along side the truck begging him to leave a strip of snow by the curb.
Usually he would. When the snow on the road melted we shifted our sledding to
our back yards and the fields behind the houses on Denton Road. My house was blessed
with a steep hill between it and the one next door. It gave us a thrilling ride
that carried us across the flat part of the yard and down a second hill into
the fields that have since been built over with a cluster of houses.
We
came down those snow-covered hills every way imaginable: face down on a sled,
sitting up, standing and holding the rope and on skis with loops of leather as
bindings. But, my favorite downhill racer was a flattened cardboard box. It
could zip past the fastest of sleds. The Wall’s kids (Woody and Stu) had a
toboggan, and like all play equipment back then, it was shared around the
neighborhood. No words were spoken, no contracts signed; we just went to the
owner’s garage, took the equipment and knocked on the window to let them know
who had it. The Walls family had the toboggan, the Harris family had the
stilts, I had the Irish-mail, a hand powered, four-wheel vehicle guaranteed to
make you as strong as Charles Atlas. The Burtis brother’s back yard, at the top
of Denton, was the access point to a makeshift ski lane that started on South
Mountain in the woods above Moore Avenue. The slope was so steep we could
barely climb it with our sleds. The trail was narrow; trees lined it on the
right, thick briars on the left. I could never keep the toboggan out of the
briars. As far as I could tell, it was un-steerable, in spite of all the
leaning we did from side to side and our desperate tugs on the so-called
steering ropes.
Not
so, for the Barton brothers (Buzzy and Chickadee). They sometimes came over
from an adjacent neighborhood with a wooden bobsled (the only one in town as
far as we knew). It was fast and it could be steered. I never got to ride it;
none of us younger kids did. We just stood off to the side watching in awe and
sucking the moisture out of our sodden wool mittens. I'm envious to this day of
that bobsled.
The
snow we loved best of all was the wet heavy stuff. That’s when our neighborhood
turned into an Eskimo village. Every yard had an igloo and the air was ablaze
with hard packed snowballs. We were smart back then. Snow smart! You didn’t see
us going around in flip-flops like kids do today. And, unlike the “four-eyed”
kid on the ever popular “shoot-your-eye-out” Christmas movie, we knew how to
unstick our tongue when we’d been double dared and touched it to a frozen,
metal sled runner. If you don’t know the secret, you won’t learn it from me. I
don’t have time. I don’t even have time to mention Joe Barry’s ski run and rope
tow at the top of Stone Road, or the “bear trap” ski bindings that didn’t
release when you fell. Or, the trains we formed with our sleds. Or, the army
surplus skis we bought that were longer than we were tall. Or, the new fangled
flying saucers that came on the market in the mid 1950’s. Or, the day a frozen
rain covered the city and we ice skated on the sidewalks and roads all over
town. I don’t have time. It’s starting to snow and I have to bundle up. It’s
still a wonderland out there! (To me).
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| Me at age 1 with Madeline age 3 |
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| I guess we'd had enough! |
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| My sister Madeline on left, Patsy on right |
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