Editorial

It's Snow Fun

Thursday, February 13, 2014

I remember it very well. It was the winter of 1974 when we had a very harsh winter. I was in the sixth grade. As a young lad, I really liked getting on for snow days.

I grew up in Piedmont, Mo. and attended Clearwater R-1 Schools. Piedmont is sets at the foot of Clark's Mountain, Missouri's third widest mountain in the state. Piedmont means "Foot of the Hill" thus the name of Piedmont. It was originally named Danielsville.

Living in the hills made it possible for a young lad to enjoys those days off. Next to my childhood home was apart of what I remember as "New Town" and it was on the highest part of the area. Each winter, I longed for winter and anticipated for snow. There was about 12 of us snotty nosed kids living in the neighborhood. We would al meet at my house cause that is where the downward portion of the hill began.

I had a sled, a little red wagon and a Buzz bike. I soon discovered that if you rubbed a bar of soap of the sled runners, you could glide down the hill with ease. Believe me, even then I was a little chunk, so I needed all the help I could get.

After a while of sledding that became kind of boring. We always wanted to fine more excitement with our snow mobiles. So, next came the Buzz Bikes. Hey, they had knobby tires, good for traction, right?

Not so much on ice. We all had a few wipe outs, as well as close encounters of the two, three and four kind..

Our next adventure, was the use of homemade ramps using plywood , concrete bricks and cardboard boxes. We would place the ramp of a concrete culvert onto of a ditch, and then from the top of the hill, slide onto the ramp and into the ditch. That was a lot of fun, until..... I made a slight turn to the right and, well there was a large light pole next to the ditch. Yup, I hit that pole sled on and put a large splinter in my thigh, and well as a few bruises. More importantly, my sled runners were cracked. I was out of a ride.

Growing up, you had to adapt. My first car was a 1974 Chevy Nova, gold in color. It had manual steering and was only a four cylinder. I was proud of that car. I bought car myself with money I had saved from mowing lawns. To become a true driver, one had to master how to get over the Country Club hill. That was a steep hill and the sun only hit one side of it. The other, not so much. The idea was to gain enough speed and to glide over that side of the hill without a spin-out. I really don't think it was a spin-out, but me and my golden arrow, got up mid way on that hill and did a 360 degree turn-around After I then gingerly made it over the hill and back home, I parked the car and had to learn how to start breathing again. However, I mastered the hill.

However, being off all those many days caught up with us in the spring and summer months. We had to extend our days to 3:30 and extended our school year, from May to end of June. I was not a happy camper. We had one of the shortest summers of all time.

I have learned since that snow time was not all that cool. Enough is enough.

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