Way Back When

The girls were here yesterday on a snow day off from school. They had a great time sledding down the front hill. This is the first time they've been brave enough to tackle the steep hill. Usually they would slide down the little hill in the back yard but the car was in the way and the only one left was out by the garden and that was way too tame.

I was watching them from inside the house. It was too, too cold outside for me! As I was watching them, I began to remember how scary the High School hill was for me as a child. We'd walk the four block up to the high school, pulling our wooden sleds. (Who ever heard of a plastic sled?) After about an hour, my feet would be freezing and I'd have to go home to warm up.

We didn't have snow pants or warm, fleece lined boots. I remember putting on my flannel pajama pants over a pair of tights, then pulling up my flannel-lined blue jeans. It made walking difficult with all those layers, but that was better than having frozen legs.

Our boots were just regular rain boots. A pair of socks, school shoes and then the plastic rain boots. That's all we had. That's all anyone had. After tromping through the snow getting back up that steep hill at the high school, your feet would be pretty much frozen. We didn't have those thick padded gloves, either. We just had our regular run-0f-the-mill single layer knitted gloves. They didn't do much for warmth, either. I don't recall having a hat, either. I think we girls always wore scarves. I wonder why we didn't have those toasty warm knit hats like the boys wore.

As for that scary, steep hill at the High School. When I stand there at the bottom and look up to the top I can't imagine why I thought it was so steep! It's a gentle slope. Nothing more. Something you could let a toddler slide down. Of course, I don't recall any toddlers going down that hill. It does empty out onto the street after you cross over the sidewalk. And there are some trees there now. That'd hurt if you ran into one of those.

We'd come back home with feet so cold it hurt to walk, snow packed down in the boots, jeans legs frozen stiff, sopping wet gloves with little balls of dirty ice stuck to them and runny noses. Around to the basement door, strip off the icy clothes, empty the snow from our boots and run into the living room where the coal furnace grate was. Ahh! We'd stand around the grate getting all toasty warm and thawed out. Mom would drape our wet clothes on a little wooden clothes dryer standing next to the grate.

Soon we and our clothes would be dry and warm. If we had time and daylight left, we'd get dressed and go out again. If not to go to the Hill, then to make a snowman or have a snowball fight.

My day-dreaming was over and the girls were bursting though the back door, getting snow and ice all over the floor and asking me to help them get out of their wet clothes. I threw their things into the dryer and they raced upstairs to play games on the computer.

Some things change but other things stay the same.