What locals did on weekends....in 1954....before ESPN and Atari

The View from Mrs Sundberg's Window
January 14, 2008

'Bout as close to flying as a person can get

The kids and I were all worn out and for good reason. Since it's been snowing on and off but hasn't gotten ass-burn cold yet, we've got a fine sledding hill going right over near the edge of the woods. Must have been a gravel pit or something similar there at one time because, as you'll see in the summertime, you go from trees to a steep grassy slope that ends up a vast, near-perfectly flat surface that stretches on until you start upward again. Like sledding down into a big ol' popcorn bowl.

So the kids were all gung ho with their new sleds and since the laundry was done and I didn't feel much like being inside, I said sure I will when they asked me to come on along. Now, though I don't get out that often, I do have a snowmobile suit, a black one, that I bought myself at Fleet Farm awhile back when the kids weren't here yet. It looks good as new except for the right lower leg which is a bit shredded from the time Mr. Sundberg and I crashed our toboggan into a barbed wire fence. No one got hurt. A little frostbite is all, as we lay sprawled in the snow awhile. We held hands and stared on up at the late afternoon sky and talked about what our kids would be like one day and where we might live and how his parents must be wondering where the heck we'd gone. What a wonderful time that was. Of course, we explained later on how we'd fallen asleep out there, it was so peaceful, but his mother shook her head and smiled and said dinner would be ready shortly and we might want to put ourselves in order.

Anyway, it was good to get outside Saturday and feel that grand feeling of launching into the air, then hitting snow and skimming and hollering all the way down to the very bottom where you come to stop and all there is is your breathing and your heart pounding and the squint of your eye against the white of the snow. 'Bout as close to flying as a person can get, sledding is. And the sleds you can get these days. I remember wood toboggans and bright red saucers were all we had. Now you can get sleds in any shape and color, with brakes and lights and horns and propellers. And you can talk on your cell phone while you're going down the hill.

Be nice to go back, now and then, wouldn't it, I asked the kids. Back to when it was all a bit simpler. They paused a moment, then one after the other pitched a snowball in my general direction. I didn't tell them this is their simple time. Don't plan on telling them. They wouldn't believe me anyway. I just grabbed a sled and hollered, Last one to the bottom is a chicken butt! And we all went down together.