More Memories

OK, I have blogged about some family related Christmas memories the last couple times, so I figured I would switch gears for a bit and reminisce about some recreation type memories, more specifically, sledding! We used to do a lot of sledding on "Sunnyside," and had lots of fun doing it. In my opinion, the best place to sled was on Chestnut Hill just a half block from my front yard. We used to walk all the way up and race down for hours on end. We had a few different trails that all ended up on the main road. We would have spotters at the bottom where Chestnut met Mission Ave. too, so no one got squashed by an oncoming car. What great times those were. I remember we had an antique wood stove in our little house on Mission, so when we were all wet and cold, we would head to our house where we usually had the front door open that wood stove heated the house so well. We would have some hot chocolate and hang up the coats, gloves, and boots by the wood stove and it would dry out in a flash!

Another sledding related memory I have has to do with the picture you see above. I think it was in 1st grade, we had an art project that was also a contest. We were to create a winter scene using construction paper. I ended up winning the contest and had to close my eyes. Upon opening them up, I got to see that I had won an awesome "Flexible Flyer" rail sled... the extra long edition! I was so excited. The winter scene I had done with construction paper had featured snow that was created by tearing white paper instead of cutting it, creating a more "snow-like" effect. I will never forget that day, seeing that magnificent sled for the first time. I kept that thing forever and got lots of great sledding out of it!