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Sledding: Bowling for Children Chris Zasada January 8, 2005 |
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A winter storm hit the area the other day, dropping about a foot of snow when all was said and done. As many of you seasoned winter veterans know, snow can be a dangerous thing to be traveling around in, easily causing an impressive amount of damage which I am sure would be fascinating if I bothered to look those numbers up. As the community lay covered with snow, I knew I had to do my part, so I bundled up and walked down to the park to go sledding.
I honestly can’t remember the last time that I went sledding, but I remember the experience pretty well. It mostly involved running up the hill, mounting the sled, and angling it just right in order to hit a nice-sized bump and go flying in the air. The ride itself would last ten seconds, after which I would climb back up the hill (which took two minutes) and repeated the process until a frostbitten parent would inform me that they were going to leave me behind if I didn’t get in the car this instant. The local park built a sledding hill a number of years ago, transforming a pile of dirt, like magic, into a pile of dirt with snow on it (though I suspect Mother Nature had a hand in the snow part). While it only stands about two stories tall, it’s still a fun and exciting time, because you can collide into small children at speeds that are not fatal, at least to you. I suited up, strapped my Pelican disc sled to my back, and set out to the sledding hill. The park is down the street from me, but the sledding hill is somewhere deep within, so the journey was perilous, but I knew that I could do it. I could have simply driven there, but with the price of gas what it is, I’d rather risk tripping and being buried in snow. One problem was that I over-anticipated the cold. I’ve taken long walks in the cold before, and I know the best way to prevent something unpleasant, like death, is to protect every part of your body, even if it doesn’t feel too cold at first. I’m not sure if it was actually freezing that day, but I’m sure I overdid the layering just a little, since I thought I was going to die of heat exhaustion before I got to the end of the street. But I persevered, and soon, after many stares from passing motorists who were probably wondering what a guy in a cowboy hat was doing walking around with a purple sled strapped to his back, I arrived at the sledding hill, which was teeming with children. It turns out that a third of all of the families in the city decided that today would be a perfect day to go sledding. Instead of doing the smart thing and giving up, they stuck around because they were committed to the task, even if their children were at risk of being crushed by a sled piloted by a 250 pound father who's blinded by the three-year-old on his lap while cruising down the hill at 57 miles per hour. There were a lot of people there, including the usual types. There were the young, post-toddlers who were dressed in coats and pants so thick that they could stop bullets (I’m not suggesting you test this), the older kids that hyperactively sail down the hill without any regard for human life, the parents who insist on riding with their children, even though their extra weight could throw the entire sled off balance and cause them to land on their children, the concerned parents who didn’t want their kids to get hurt or have fun, and the teeny-bopper teenage girls who think it’s cute to go sledding. I also saw some types that I didn’t expect: the loud Goth girls who are the total bad-asses of the sledding hill and the overweight teenage males who wear thin t-shirts to go sledding. It seemed like it would be uncomfortable to wear thin t-shirts in near-freezing temperatures while rolling in the snow, but I guess everything turned out okay for them, expect for the fact that they probably caught a nasty bout of hypothermia and are dead now. I made my way up the walking path, walking an estimated three feet per hour, because the person in front of me was walking next to a small child who was crawling up the hill. I mean that literally: the walkway was so slick from the snow being compacted by thousands of feet that it was impossible to walk up without slipping. When you combine this with a child who just recently figured out how to walk without tripping and banging his head on the coffee table, you can’t expect a whole lot of expedience. A few weeks later, I arrived at the top. After navigating the forest of excited children and concerned parents, I found a spot to mount up, so a knelt down, pushed myself to the edge, and waited. This is because there were at least a dozen kids scampering around in my path, laughing and smiling, unaware that their doom was waiting at the top of the hill and getting impatient. In the old days, I would wait for a reasonable opening, defined as any opening three feet wide anywhere at the bottom of the hill, even if I was on the other side. I figured that, as a responsible adult, I should be patient and wait for the little scamps to get out of my way, lest I destroy them on impact with my 200-pound plus wave of sledding fury. I don’t think the park rangers would see it my way. Speaking of which, the park rangers were on hand to make sure that we didn’t have too much fun. You see, sledders can climb over the fence at the top and side of the hill and go down that way, both of which are much steeper and therefore more fun (i.e.: fatal). The park rangers were on hand to make sure no one went for it, which put a damper on the day somewhat, but I figured I could “accidentally” clothesline a child to fill the void. And there were a lot of opportunities. The kids who believe that no one else wants to go down the hill after them were there in record numbers, walking straight up the hill or at angles, stopping to have a chat with their similarly-vacant friends, joining their families who were hosting barbeques, and other inappropriate sledding hill activities. I’m surprised there weren't more collisions than there were, but I guess we have all those vigilant parents to thank for sternly informing their children that they don’t want them to sail down the hill recklessly and hurt other children, causing a lawsuit. Personally, I say charge down that hill and let God sort them out. The day turned out pretty well, even though it was quite clear that my upgraded weight class wasn’t ideal for getting a whole lot of speed (though the increased handling helped keep with my no-child-fatalities goal). I should mention that because it wasn’t all that cold out, the sledders managed to wear some mud holes into the hill, which weren’t too bad, except wiping out face-first in one of these wouldn’t provide the best thrills in the world, unless you’re into that sort of thing. In case you were wondering, I did manage to plow into a small child. I was going down the hill, minding my own business, when this kid listlessly wanders into my way. Fortunately, I only tripped him, and the impact didn’t even faze him, because he was outfitted with enough protection to resist a semi-truck. This same kid lost his sled, which slid back down the hill, and he heroically ran after it without looking where he was going and just barely missed being taken out by an oncoming sled. The riders of that sled fell off to avoid the kid, which eventually caused a large and very entertaining pileup of other riders who possesed similar awareness and apparently couldn't see more than three feet ahead of them. I left the sledding hill and decided to take on a challenge and walk through the park, which was blanketed by knee-deep snow. I took this time to reflect on the simple, innocent time that I had, dashing down the hill on my disc and reliving those fond moments from my childhood. Honestly, I was thinking about how desperately I wanted to be at home in my warm house in front of my Playstation. But I will be back, because I didn’t meet my kid collision quota last time. |