Published: January 17, 2008 10:32 am         

Sledding days are long gone

When I glance up from the typewriter I can look through the window to watch snowflakes drifting softly to the ground. It's a pretty scene, reminding me of all those years when a snowfall was an invitation to joyous activity.

As schoolchildren, we leaned against snowbanks, waving our arms to make angels. We built snowmen, piling balls of snow one on top of the other. We constructed forts, high enough that we could almost hide behind the walls, and stocked them with hard snowballs to use as ammunition against an imagined enemy. I can remember the elaborate plans and preparation, but I don't recall any battle ever taking place.

Sled-riding, though, was an activity that required no preparation, once we were equipped with boots and caps and mittens.

My first such experience, I think, came the winter I turned 5. We lived at that time in Utica, N.Y., in an area noted for its heavy snow accumulations.

My father had to dig a path around our house to the back door, and decided to pile up the snow he was moving into a sort of ramp, perhaps four feet high at one end and tapering to ground level at the other side of the yard.

I remember that he lifted me to the high end of the slope, saw that I was safely seated on a tray, or perhaps a big lid borrowed from the kitchen, and then held my hand as I coasted down the frosty equivalent of a playground sliding board.

I was introduced to conventional sled-riding the next year, when we moved to a house in the middle of a long, sloping block. Streets were not plowed in those days, and cars were few, so fresh snow brought out older boys on skis, clusters of teenagers on toboggans, Daddy and Mother (borrowing a sled from a neighbor?) took Ruth and me to the top of the hill, and then, one parent and one child on each sled, pushed off for a slow, safe ride all the way to the bottom of the block.

By the time I was big enough to ride a sled on my own, we had moved to Philadelphia, where traffic was too heavy to permit playing in the street.

Children in our neighborhood went, instead, to an unfenced yard, where the big house stood in the middle of about an acre of gently-sloping lawn. We pushed off from the back of the yard, and sometimes coasted almost to the street.

I have no idea who lived in that house; we never saw anyone, were never charged with trespass, and for several years enjoyed every minute of slow-sledding that the site afforded us.

Years later, as an adult, I moved to Frostburg with my husband and two little boys. The town lived up to its frosty reputation. Early in the fall semester, Bill and I had to boot up to walk through the snow to a college dance. A few weeks later we watched through our kitchen window to see fireworks and snowflakes mingling spectacularly on the college campus. The pyrotechnics had been planned to accompany the ground-breaking for Garrett Hall, but when that event was postponed until spring, the town fathers decided not to delay that long. The snowstorm, of course, was unplanned, but newspapers across the country chortled, "Where but in a town called Frostburg.....?''

With that introduction to the town, a sled seemed the most appropriate of gifts for our sons. During the next snow-shower Bill went to Prichard's for a Flexible Flyer to put under the Christmas tree. We didn't realize that in Frostburg winter sometimes begins in September and sometimes saves all the nasty weather for March.

That year the few snows we had after Christmas fell at night, and were melted before the children came home from school. The sled had to wait until the following year!

In some years, sled-riding in Frostburg has been encouraged by setting off certain streets - perhaps Frost Avenue at the west end, Hill Street on the east - for sledding.

Between 3 in the afternoon and 9 at night, police have barricaded crossing streets, so that sledders have the area to themselves.

But nowadays, with heavier traffic and citizens' expectation that streets will be plowed or treated within a few hours after the snow falls, sleds on public thoroughfares are not permitted. One has to know an amicable farmer, or go to a public park to sled down a snowy slope.

As for me, I did my not-very-adventurous sledding years ago. I'm quite happy sitting, warm and cozy, indoors, and watching the snowflakes drift gently past the window.

Betty VanNewkirk is the historian for the Frostburg Museum.