We’re having a full blown spring blizzard here in the upper Midwestern region of the US this weekend. Eighteen inches of snow have fallen in the last twenty four hours and the city of St. Paul declared a snow emergency.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of a snow emergency, this means you must move your car from the “Day Plow Routes” (East/West streets) by 8AM or run the risk of a hefty fine or the city impounding your vehicle.

There is a car underneath there somewhere.

I set my alarm for 6AM this morning and spent forty minutes digging out my Prius so I could move it. This is one of those increasingly frequent moments between November and May when I ask myself, “Why do you live here?!”

This also got me thinking about the wintertime adventures of my childhood in the 1970’s.

Winters in the 1970’s in Ohio (where I grew up) were unusually relentless and harsh. It was common for us to get close to a foot of snow over the course of a few days. As much as I abhor snow now that I’m an adult I loved it as a young child. My father, who could be every bit as much of a kid as my brother and I, would always be ready to pack the sleds and inner tubes into the car to seek out the biggest hill we could find. My mother would never go with us, because she's smart.

Mind you, four wheel drive, all wheel drive, or even front wheel drive wasn’t a thing for most people back then so even getting to the sled hill was an adventure. Most cars back then were too big, too heavy, typically overpowered, and rear wheel drive...pretty much a recipe for disaster and donuts in the snow and ice.

My father, brother, and I would usually leave the house early in the morning and would be layered up with sweatshirts, snow jackets, and boots. We didn’t have the high tech Northface gear of today, we were typically cold and our extremities were numb within twenty minutes but we were having so much fun we didn’t want to stop sledding. I can remember having hands teetering on the edge of being frostbitten and the “pins and needles” sensation as I ran them under lukewarm water until the feeling came back.

When thinking of wintery thrills, one particular sledding adventure comes to mind. I was about eight years old, my brother five, and we had over a foot of fresh snow on the ground. This particular day my father found the mother of all hills, it was nearly three stories high. The hill was next to a bridge over train tracks, and was comprised of the mounded earth that supported the bridge.

A few hundred feet from the bottom of the hill was a patch of woods and a small church. My father, being the safety conscious person he was (not), had to go first “to make sure it was safe.” He carefully positioned the wooden and steel Flexible Flyer sled, hopped on, grabbed the flimsy rope that was theoretically designed to steer the sled (but did nothing), and asked us to give him a push. The sled started slowly, like a roller coaster cresting the top of a hill.

My brother and I watched, in awe, as gravity began to pull him faster and faster down the hill through the fresh snow. Plumes of powdery white curled up around him as he gained more and more speed. He yelled a shriek of excitement as he got smaller and smaller. The momentum continued to carry him well past the bottom of the hill.

Then we simultaneously heard a crash and muffled, “OOOF!”

We then watched as my father’s body folded up like an ironing board. His shins nearly met his nose and then he disappeared into the fresh powder. Baffled, and laughing uncontrollably, my brother and I ran down the hill to see what had happened.

As my father started to stir we discovered he had hit a small creek bed hidden beneath the deep and level snow. His momentum took him over the first side of the ravine and crashed him into the other side. After he took a moment to collect himself and caught his breath he trudged up the hill again with the sled, us following closely behind.

He decided to have another go at it, this time from a new starting point. Like deja-vu he again hopped on the Flexible Flyer sled, once again asked us to push him off, and again careened down the massive hill. Halfway down the sled’s rails connected with his previous tracks from the first run and my father found himself crashing into the creek bed once again.

After my brother and I regained our composure from laughing, all we could think about was getting our hands on that sled and feeling that same thrill ourselves, minus the 25 mph collision with the ravine. After two more test runs we got a clear path forged which took us away from the creek. My Dad had taken not just one but two for “the team.”

Forty years later, we still talk about this memory occasionally and laugh uncontrollably. This was only one of probably hundreds of similar adventures my father took my brother and I on. And people wonder why my brother and I aren't risk averse.

(Gif sourced from Giphy.com)

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed these memories.

Yours in the Chain,

Eric

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