My favorite (but not perfect) sled

When I was young, our backyard sloped onto a steep hill that ran between 16A Street and 17th St.  In the summer, the meadow at the bottom of the hill was a perfect place to pick wild flowers -- lady slippers and shooting stars. On some summer nights, I could see fire flies in the meadow.  If I would wait until dark, and creep out with a glass canning jar, I might catch one.

The slope of the hill was good for sledding in the winter. I don’t know how many iterations of sleds we had, with nine children living in that house.  The three-seater top-of-the-line wooden toboggan would hold three of us if the first person tucked their feet under the curved top, and the next two people wrapped their legs around the person in front of them so that their dragging legs didn’t slow down the sped of the sled.

The adult who was tucking in the feet of the sledders would also give the sled its initial rush of speed until gravity and the slick bottom of the sled took over.

I thought the toboggan was heavy. Pulling it back up the hill seemed like a monumental task. Probably the combined effect of pulling each foot out of the calf- deep snow and the effort of resisting the slide backward as I climbed the hill was the real problem and not the weight of the toboggan sliding on the top of the snow.

There were no brakes on the sled.  On miracle runs we would glide smoothly to a stop. But if the path down the hill was not carefully chosen by the driver, the bumps along the way would send one of the rider's legs that were now coming loose on the toboggan out into the snow. The sled would come to an instant stop. All would careen off  with a lurch sideways and then a face plant into the snow. Luckily no breaks occurred when we were using that run.

My all-time favourite sled is a piece of cardboard. On our way to elementary school there was a steeper hill and the downward flight on a large piece of heavy cardboard made it worthwhile to drag  the cardboard, blocks through the neighbourhood to get to the preferred destination. With care, a piece of cardboard like that might last two or three days. The final shredding of the bottom of this fast snow vehicle, leaving not even a small place to sit on anymore, brought great sadness.   A good piece of cardboard is not easy to find.

Later the world invented crazy carpets -- light weight, slick -- all of the qualities of a heavy weight cardboard.  I give today's crazy carpet a two thumbs up for those who have no access to heavy duty packing cardboard.

Arta