All I can think about this morning is
The Cold
I even had to get up early to enjoy it. At
this point I will enter a disclaimer meaning that I am being sarcastic, as I
don’t really enjoy the cold so much as when I was a youth and sometimes would
do anything to get out of the house. There were no toys in my room like the
early Atari’s or a Game Boy, the only game boy I knew was the one I imagined
for myself. Gaming and digital toys were in their infancy then, and to me
nonexistent and I think they had actually never been thought of back then. And probably the first handheld digital calculator
was a Texas instrument TI 20, and they were still a year or two from going on
the market. One of which I owned and later
cherished the clunky thing when in college at A.T.I..
Bored with reading or doing homework in
the winter here on the farm, I would
grab the old 56 ford car hood that brother and I had for sledding would haul it
up over the hill and would ride sled as many times as I cared to pull that
heavy thing up the hill in the snow. I
would always have to sled ride about 5- 6 times down the hill to polish the
rust off the bottom of the car hood and to pack down the track as we called it,
when sledding with my brothers.
The old car hood was undoubtedly the best
sled once you had it going. Its flat smooth steel bottom was 16 GA. steel, much
harder to dent than the 20 GA, or less they make fenders out of today and
that’s if they aren’t plastic. But the
really nice thing was you could easily fit 2 people on and even if by yourself
you could turn the sled just by leaning as the flattened v shape of the style
of the car hood would crowd snow to one
side or the other and that resistance turned you in the opposite direction.
This worked great except for one time.
This one particular time i went sledding
over the hill when I was fifteen, that day I had went over the hill alone. Where
we had a track it had rained some freezing rain and froze on top of the packed snow,
making it a crunchy glaze and I knew it was going to be ripe for some good
sledding and it was. I was soon bouncing over humps with speed I had never experienced
before, as trees blurred past and the bottom of the hill was soon coming up,
and at the bottom I would bail off the sled into the loose snow and laugh at
the excitement and thrill of having stared death in the face and escaping again
as I would jump up and grab the tow rope for one more denial to the death gods.
A few slides of the sled down the hill had really polished the cold undersides
of the sled and each pass was getting faster. I would grab the tow rope at the
bottom of the hill and hurry to the top wanting that reckless speed again until
at last I had come to my last unforeseen ride down the hill.
I breathlessly climbed on as we have a good
hill with over a 1000 ft. of open space and few trees mostly off to the side,
no problem if you go straight down the hill. It was soon evident after I took
off that this ride was different as I leaned into a turn to straighten out the
old car hood, it sent me into a spin, an uncontrolled spin. Here I was hurtling
down the hill and in less than 10 seconds I would have to jump off because I
wasn’t going straight and was headed for a tree that had undoubtedly ran over
to the middle of my track as I was veering off badly. It was spinning pretty
fast, the undersides and slopes of the fenders doing nothing to slow me down,
and if anything the painted undersides of the hood now turned upside down with
its tough old lead paint, and icy sheen filling any scratches made it go
faster. I tried to jump off just before it hit the tree and instead wrapped
myself around the tree with the brunt of the force striking me in the chest as
my arms wrapped around the tree and met my feet and jerked me to a sudden stop
at what I guess must have been close to 35 miles per hour now. It expelled all the air out of my lungs and bent
the sled with its heavy GA. steel at least a foot into the side of the sled.
I laid there in the cold snow and gasped
and hurt, unable to move till I had figured out how bad I was hurting. The numbness
of the snow was working into every crease and crevice from my butt to my
eyebrows which was covered in icy goodness as I lay there wrapped around the
tree lying on my side. This cold motivated me to move more than anything, as I
rolled on to my back away from the tree and tried to sit upright after a few
minutes. My chest hurt and I looked at the sled. It was a good one but I had
definitely did it in, with my at the time, 180 lb. body on top of it as it was
hurtling into the tree . The tree was scarred from the impact, and the sled had
veered at least 60 ft. from straight downhill just to hit this tree and end
this poor sleds life. I felt sorrowed and I looked around to see if anyone saw
me.
That was perhaps stupidest thing I believe
I have ever did and thankfully or not, no one was there to witness it. And why
did I expect them too was the dumbest part. I knew I was alone in the middle of
forty acres on a farm even more removed from anyone else, I was by myself.
There wasn’t even a dog to send to the house had I needed rescued, no Lassie to
scratch on the door, and bark Timmy’s fucked up again. Over the hill -over the
hill, he would bark in dog language. Our dogs back then were different. Not seeming
to follow so much as my German shepherds. A collie liked to hunt and was
probably out somewhere else looking for a rabbit or something. Maybe later
stopping by to gnaw on me and see if I was dead yet and then I would feed them
for days.
I hurt bad but knew it would probably be
supper time before anyone would miss me after polishing off the pork chops and potatoes,
and asking mom if they should save me any. Maybe then they might realize I was gone
unseen from the table and the house. Knowing this and realizing in the winter
in Ohio it was going to take a search party quite a while to find me I figured
it would be dark and I would freeze to death before then, it was in my best interest to get back to the
house on my own while I still could.
I
struggled to my feet and limped around trying to find the end of the tow rope
to pull the sled up the hill. A couple of feet of pulling it made me realize it
was screwed. I just left it there as it hurt too much to try and pull it. The
wrinkles in its skin offered plenty of resistance to the snow to make moving it
almost impossible and besides my side hurt like hell. I was lucky to make it to
the top of the hill alone, and over the other side of the hill down to the house.
I walked in the door and told Mom I had
wrecked the sled.
She said, “That is nice, did you feed the
cows yet?” Changing the subject, as if to avoid a hurried trip to the hospital
for nothing.
I said “I just hurt my side,” without
answering about the cattle,
To this I got, “Oh is it bad?”
I
said “I wrinkled up the old car hood, and wrapped myself around a tree and
knocked the wind out of myself”, thinking at least it might get an ‘Oh that is too
bad, let me have a look,’ instead I get a:
“Well
you seem to be standing ok, you had better get out and feed those cows and work
it off and see how you feel.” Dismissing my pain, and avoiding a hospital bill,
just in case I didn’t really need it, all in one fell swoop.
At this point I knew what tough love was
and Mom could really lay it on you at times. Kinda pissed me off and I couldn’t
care less if my chest was bruised on my left side for days and when I finally went
to get a physical for football almost 6 mos. later the Dr. noticed the bulge I
still carry on my left side where one rib overlapped another and was busted and
grew back together, at that time knitting itself together to fix a minor flaw
in my somewhat perfect body at that time. The Dr. rubbed his hand over the hump
and examined it over, and looked at me and asked if I had hit it sometime. I mentioned
sled riding and getting the wind knocked out of me as I relayed my story to the
old Doc, and he said I had probably broke a rib and there was nothing they
could do about it now, and that it was going to be that way the rest of my
life.
When I joined Mom in the waiting room and
we were soon headed home. I told her about my rib being broken and she said, “
Well there isn’t nothing they can do about a rib.” I thought to myself.
‘Geesh!’ Even now when I present her with
proof positive she neglected me when I was hurt, she still would never admit
it. I should have told the Doc she kicked me after knocking me to the floor and
see what had happened. Oh well even back then you just didn’t do that. You took
them for what they were, your parents good or bad. And for the most part they
were pretty good.
Well when I am cold I tend to look outside
and wish for warmer weather now. I could play games on the puter, and while
away the hours till spring. In reality though I would just like to get back
outside where there are no toys. Not really ready for sledding as it still too
cold and I think I have learned my lesson from sledding alone, especially at my
age. I will include some pics of me sledding a couple of years ago when James
was up here helping me. We had the old flat bottomed boat and it was great
also. Was able to take the dogs and we had a great time. It worked great for
that as that it also, just took a lean
to steer. And looking at kayaks yesterday down at New Town Mall I think I would like to try one of those sometime for
sledding before I bite the big one. Think they would be the ultimate even with
the oars going downhill, and leaning into the corners. I bet they would fly. After
all where does a boat do best? On water, only it is frozen water or snow.
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