Friday, September 5, 2025

I am finally getting back to my blog although I have been updating the books I have read.  Recently I started to write little essays about moments in my life.  My daughter Ana gave me the idea.  She saw online a challenge for people to write short essays about moments in their life.  The rule was to keep it to 75 words or less.  I am not going to keep my essays that short but will try to stay within that spirit - short descriptions of moments in my life.  Here is the first one:

Playing in the Snow

 I grew up in the 1950s in the Midwest, specifically in southwestern Ohio.  This is a four season climate.  My best memories come from our home on the outskirts of Piqua, Ohio.  Piqua was a small town at that time and was just beginning to create new housing right outside of town.  Our area was one of those very first “suburbs”.  It was only about 20 or so houses lined up along both sides of a state highway leading west from the city.  Most of the lots of the houses were set on an acre of land with very few fences.  The children of this community had free rein to play in all of the yards and in the fields and forests surrounding the area.  The fence line at the back of the properties on my side of the road was a favorite spot to play.  The fence line served to separate the house lots from the field behind.  The crop in the field was usually either soybeans or corn alternating from year to year.  The fence line was made up of old and young trees and various kinds of weeds.  It was fertile territory for children to climb trees, build forts, play hide and seek and seek solace from the outside world. 

 On the northern side of the road were our neighbors also lined up in a row.  The road coming out of Piqua was level until just past our house going west.  There the road dipped down as you headed out of town.  At its bottom was a stream that came from the north and then followed the highway until it disappeared.  This was also a location for neighborhood children to gather and catch crawdads and float sticks down the stream.  One of the richest houses in the neighborhood was lucky enough to have that stream border the western side of their property as it headed towards the highway.  The landscaping of that property was the envy of the neighborhood.  The fence line at the back of the houses on the northern side of the highway separated their yards from a forest.  As children we were able to cut through our neighbors house across the street and enter that forest through a break in the fence.  That placed us at the top of a hill looking down a path that wound its way through the forest to a stream far below.  In the summer, we would go down and follow that stream making little pretend boats from sticks.  We would put them in the stream and follow them down the current running alongside the stream so we could keep our eyes on our “boats”.  It was always a challenge to see how far we could get our “boats” to travel the stream before disappearing or getting hung up on rocks or debris along the way.  Near that stream on the north side there was another fence.  This time we had to climb the fence and jump down on the other side.  At that point we were on the property of the City of Piqua’s public golf course.  We were way at the back of the course where golfers rarely went.  A large hill was up above us which we had to climb to get to one of the 18 holes of the golf course.  This particular hole was at the top of the hill right on the edge so that the golfer was hitting the ball from a high vantage point way out downhill in the far distance. 

 In the winter, this whole forest with its stream, two major fences and access to the hills and valleys of the golf course became a winter playground.  We would dress for the weather.  We had snow pants that we would put on over our slacks, snow jackets, boots that zipped, knit hats and scarves, gloves.  We had two wooden sleds (one long, one short) and one silver aluminum one that was circular in shape.  I liked the longest wooden sled that you could steer.  We would pull our sleds across the snow, cross the road carefully and make our way to behind our neighbor’s house.  As we entered the forest and the downhill path through the trees we had to be careful to guide our sleds along the path, around the curves and avoid hitting any trees.  Depending on the condition of the snow, it could be a fast downhill slide.  At the bottom we would land on the ice of the stream and come to a top.  Then we needed to pull the sleds again, lug them over the next fence and we had arrived at the golf course.  Not all of the winter play involved sleds though.  Along the bottom of the hill leading to the golf course hole above, the snow would create drifts.  We liked to dig little “caves” in the snow and crawl inside.  Then up the hill we would hike pulling the sleds until we were at the top. 

 It felt like we could see forever at the top if the weather was cold and crisp.  The main hill was not straight down.  There was a bit of a dip in it.  So, gravity and a running start gave the sled momentum, you hit the dip and flew off into the air and down again as you slid downhill.  Of course we were always trying to go as far as possible to be king of the hill. 

 There was one time when the weather was definitely NOT crisp and clear.  It was still snowing and everything was white – the ground, the air, the sky.  After my sled finally stopped, it was suddenly very quiet.  I took a few moments to take in the atmosphere.  I thought to myself that this is what it might be like to be lost in a blizzard.  I was alone with no visibility and no sound.  That was many years ago, decades ago and I can still remember what that feeling was during that moment.

 Sometimes, instead of sledding at the golf course, we would take our ice skates with us.  There were ponds on the golf course that would freeze.  Pushing the ice off with snow shovels we could create our own ice skating rink.  The ponds were quite shallow so there was no fear of breaking the ice and falling through.  The first time I got on my skates I thought it was going to be difficult to stand on them.  But we had experience roller skating and ice skating was even easier because the skates were lighter. 

 Finally, at the end of an afternoon of playing in the snow and ice, we would reluctantly trudge home.  It was quite a walk going back, retracing our steps to where we had to climb over the fence, cross the frozen stream and pull our sleds back up the hill to our neighbor’s backyard.  By this time, we felt very cold and eager to take off all of our snow clothes and find the bathroom.  Going in the backdoor of our house, our parents directed us to the basement so that we didn’t get snow and ice all over the house.  Sometimes they had to help us get our boots off as the zippers on the boots would get encased in the ice.

 Hot chocolate with marshmallows and popcorn were next on our agenda.  We had created fine memories, had fun with our friends and were happy to be back safe in our family home. 

 Some 60-65 years later, those fields are filled with houses.  The forests are gone.  The access to the gold course is gone though the golf course itself is still there.  I wonder if kids today still find a way to get to that high hill where golfers hit their balls into the wide expanse below and children of yesteryear flew off that same hill in their wooden sleds while playing in the snow?