Keep it Simple: Of ice skates, sleds and toboggans
When I was a kid growing up in the 1950s and '60s, winter meant sledding; mostly on the steep hill behind my house, and skating, on a nearby lake or the small man-made pond in the neighborhood.
Occasionally the Clinton River, which flowed through my backyard near the bottom of the sledding hill, would freeze over just enough and we could skate on its glasslike surface which was akin to being pure childhood magic.
It had to be an exceptionally cold winter for the moderately swift current of the Clinton to succumb to its irrepressible need to flow unimpeded out to Lake St. Clair 40 miles away, and then allow its surface to ice over and hold a lightweight skater such as me or my younger brother.
When it did freeze, the best we could hope for might be a week of skating before a minor warm spell would descend on southeast Michigan and ruin our magical fun.
Sledding or tobogganing was also dependent upon the weather being cold enough to produce the snow necessary to allow a trip down the hill before coming to a stop near the icy cold river.
As I remember it there was almost always enough snow between Christmas and New Year’s Day for sledding and my brother and I, along with several of our friends in the neighborhood, would spend the Christmas break days doing just that.
While we all had those Flexible Flyer sleds with the skinny steel runners our downhill transport of choice was an old wooden toboggan which, with four of five of us riding atop, could pick up some scary fast speeds on the steep slope which might send half of us flying off when we bottomed out as the toboggan left the hill for level ground.
The goal of course was for everyone to hang on after hitting the bottom and maintain enough speed to propel us to the very brink of the riverbank as we attempted to coax the ride to become the best ever.
Snow conditions, including depth and snow texture as well as the condition of the worn toboggan track itself, all played into whether we might even have a chance to obtain infamous notoriety; at least in our minds, as the first and only kids to “rocket” ourselves right onto the river’s surface and “blast” across to the other side of the Clinton. This of course never happened but it was always fun to speculate what it would exactly take to accomplish such a feat.
This past New Year’s Eve night Midland received 3 inches of snow, enough for my grandchildren to haul out a sled and a cheap version of a snowboard. My wife and I had spent the night at their house and on New Year’s Day morning I went outside with the grandkids to watch them sled down the two relatively small hills their house sits atop.
One hill was fairly steep and at the bottom was the cul-de-sac road next to the house which we had to keep a semi-wary eye on although it’s rare to see a car pass by. On this hill the kids could get going pretty fast and when the coast was clear; ie. no cars, they could get up enough speed to easily cross the road and come to a stop on the opposite shoulder. A pretty decent ride indeed.
On the other side of the house a short, gentle hill led, at its bottom, to the backyard - not much of a challenge on a sled but fairly difficult on a cheap snowboard while standing up. After a while, they got the hang of it and after several successful runs we eventually migrated to the warmth inside the house, bringing the first sledding of 2024 to a successful close.
I’ve always enjoyed spending time outside in the muffled quiet of a freshly fallen snow, whether with my brother and friends taking on the challenge of our childhood sledding adventures or 60 years later doing much the same with my grandchildren on a mid-Michigan winter’s day to start a new year.
Enjoy your new year. I know my grandkids and I are hoping to do just that.
— Michael Jones is a columnist and contributor for the Gaylord Herald Times. He can be reached at mfomike2@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Keep it Simple: Of ice skates, sleds and toboggans
