Snowy days and dangerous thrills

I'm well past the days when a thin layer of snow was cause for ecstatic celebration, though the memories of those days are clear in my mind. Snow was such a rarity that we would rush from the house, bundled in caps and gloves and coats and galoshes, to mash snowballs into shape and to see our very own footprints in a field of pure, perfect white. Traipsing through the woods at the back of my parents' property, I would find a wonderland of white icing on pine and sweetgum boughs and a creek anchored with ice. A piece of cardboard or a board would serve as a sled (snow was too rare to justify the investment in a real sled), but taking a running start and sliding on our feet across a sheet of ice was as exciting as any Winter Olympics event.

This week, I've recalled those childhood days, which lasted into my college years, when dorm-mates would "do figure-eights" with their Volkswagen beetles in icy, empty parking lots. Some of those activities, particularly those involving automobiles or walking on a frozen creek, are, in reflection, too dangerous. What I've seen this week — a repeat from previous years when snow covered the streets near my house — really frightened me. Grown men driving four-wheelers towed children behind them through the snowy streets. A rope tied to the sled or snow disc or inner tube and hitched to the off-road vehicle seemed to thrill the children piled on the towed object, but I cringed each time I saw one go past. No one stopped them; no one questioned the use of unlicensed off-road vehicles on city streets.

All it would take, I realized, would be a passing motorist going into a skid on the ice and plowing into the unprotected children. Or that snow disc could swing wide at a corner and crash into a street-side tree or utility pole. This thrill ride was a tragedy waiting for the right circumstances. Before the echo of their laughter absorbed into the soft snow, those kids could be seriously injured or worse. And snow would never be fun again.