The Robinson Argus February 6th, 1997 article on winter life, in the "I Remember When" series by Don Catt.
It was one of those beautiful sunny Sunday afternoons in late winter when, after being cooped up in the house all winter, it's almost impossible to stay inside. About five or six inches of fresh snow had fallen during the night, making the trackless hillsides even more inviting. Christine's brother Otis, and sister Elizabeth Legg, were here for dinner.
After we had eaten, we decided to go with the kids to try out a little hill in our cow pasture. The kids had one regular sled and one of those plastic saucer type sleds which they put to use immediately.
Do you remember how hard it was to stand at the top of a good sliding hill, watching your kids as they laughed and hollered when their sled turned over and dumped them in the snow? Even when you're about 40 years old, there's something about their fun that's contagious and you want to get in on it! Soon we all were sliding on the hill, rolling in the snow when the sleds hit a bump, and having a ball!
Christine's brother, Charlie Leff, and his wife, Maxine, and their kids, Charlene and Duane, came by and saw us on the hill. They stopped and soon got caught up in the fun. A little while later, Wayne Mills, his wife Helen, and their kids, Elaine and Dave, stopped. With a little coaxing, we got them to try the hill, and soon we were all having one fun time.
Christine had a home movie camera with her and we took a roll of film. When I see that film, I can hardly believe it happened. All of us adults were around 40 of older, rather conservative, but here we were, caught up in the fun of the moment like a bunch of 12 year olds!
Sliding down the hill in that plastic dish with our legs crossed under us, wearing our heavy winter coats, we looked a little like an old hen sitting on a nest! That sled always turned around every time it hit a hump in the ground, so mostly it went spinning down the hill, usually dumping us out on the snow before we reached the bottom. The longer we played, the slicker the hill became. That was fine going down, but it was slick coming back up, too!
A couple of hours of sliding on the hill and visiting with each other while we waited our turn was the most fun I'd had in the snow since I was a kid sliding with the school kids on Bill Updike's hill at Oak Ridge.
I thought at 49 we were too old to be playing in the snow like a bunch of kids, but now I realize that we were just "aspiring chickens" and I'm glad we had that afternoon of fun! We were worn out when we trudged back to the house, but after 30 years I am still amused when I think of how we looked, perched on that little sled, hanging on for dear life as we turned and twisted down the hill, usually ending up flat on our backs in the snow! I'll bet our kids though we'd lost our minds!
When I was a kid, all our sleds were homemade. We got some two by four boards, sloped the front ends for runners and nailed some boards across the top. They were rather heavy but the wide runners packed the snow quickly, even when there wasn't much on the ground. The only bad thing about their weight was when I had to drag it back up the hill!
When all the creeks and ponds were frozen solid, instead of drawing water for 20 head of cows with a bucket, Dad usually picked the ax and headed for the river. When the cows saw him going toward the river with an ax, they all followed. He chopped some holes in the ice and the cows drank from the river. Drawing water from a well for 20 head of cows is a lot of work.