Bill
In New England, in Massachusetts, in Hyde Park, where I grew up from a kid of eight to a college student, one enduring phenomenon that was very much part of my life was the seasons. In the snow, in the rain, in the fog, in the cold, in the heat and the wind, wherever I was, at my house, in the woods, in the fields, at school, at a friend’s house, on foot, by bike, by car, during the day or at night, I grew into those ever changing, always evolving, seasons. This is where I lived: winter to spring to summer to fall.
The seasons defined where I was in the year. Sometimes good. Sometimes not. In December it’s dark at 5 o’clock, at 9 o’clock in July it’s still light; the yard has to be mown in June, the yard has disappeared under snow in January; leaves act as relief from the sun in August, leaves tumble down in a colorful array in October; a hurricane is possible in September, hail in May, a blizzard in March; the year can leap in February, the warmth can surprise in April; the holiday season gets under way in November.
For me, aware of it or not, the seasons were emotional, even sensual. Clear, crisp, vivid light in October, the subtlest of new green you’d see for only a few weeks in April, the ripe, ready to decay green you’d see only at the end of August, the yearning for a change in March, the yearning for a change in September, a snow shower rainbow, the hill shrouded in fog, the silence of a snowed-under Prospect Street, the sun burning down in July, the sun weak and wan in January, a crash of thunder that wakes you in the middle of a summer night. The seasons were both serenity and tumult, ever present through my young life.
“It’s starting to snow.” “No school. All schools. Boston.” “It’s so hot out.” “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” “April showers bring May flowers.” “In like a lion, out like a lamb.” “It’s time to rake the leaves.” “Mow the back lawn.” “Shovel the driveway.” “Stay out of the mud.” “It’s so foggy you can’t see your hand in front of your face.” “It’s raining cats and dogs.” These were phrases I heard all my childhood describing the flakes, the drops, the gusts, the rays, the colors, the sounds, the silences, the ramifications, the beauty of the seasons: that quartet of months that carried me along from one year to the next.
I became aware of the seasons because my father loved that most integral aspect of the planet’s twists and turns around the sun, the weather. He told me about the monster blizzards of winter, the striking heat of summer, camping on the Cape with his family in the fall, the high water of spring for canoeing and eel fishing.
One of my father’s favorite poems was Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl by Whittier. He’d recite verses to me from memory.
The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
And this:
So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun.
We looked upon a world unknown.
No cloud above, no earth below,
A universe of sky and snow.
My father was a romantic, at least when it came to poetry. He identified with those images of a family farm in winter: the darkness at noon, the depth of snowfall, getting the horse out of the barn, the relentless wind through the trees, of starting the evening fire, of being snowbound, and thinking ahead to the distant summer, of “lilies floating in a pond.”
While we had TV weathermen (No women then.) to warn us of approaching weather, our most essential weather tool was just outside our kitchen window: the thermometer. My father would check the temperature a number of times during the day and evening. I eventually began to do the same thing. He’d talk to me about temperature, about the numbers, how that thin column of expanding mercury would top out at precisely the current air temperature. It was like a little miracle.
I learned that 90 degrees was really hot. Ice would form at the magic number of 32. Really cold was anything below zero. It didn’t snow at 40; it didn’t rain at 20. 75 is nice; 100 isn’t. 35 is tolerable; 6 isn’t. I began to get a sense of the numbers and how they worked with other factors like humidity and wind to determine whether I needed a jacket or a hat or mittens; whether I could put on my short-sleeved shirt early on a June morning or have to wait until afternoon when it warmed up; whether I could make snowballs after a storm or if a handful of snow would break apart as useless powder.
I’d glance at it when I got up in the morning, when I stood at the sink having a drink of water, when someone said, “What’s the temperature?” I’d check it and yell out the number. Looking at the temperature gave me insights about what change was about. Cool in the morning did not mean it would be cool in the afternoon. Not in July. Maybe in January. The coat I’d have on going to school in October might be slung over my shoulder on the way home. I’d know it was cold if I could see my breath both on cold December mornings and the same December afternoon. Mild in January was the mid-40’s; cold in May was the mid-40’s. A hot morning in August could turn dark and foreboding by late afternoon. I didn’t like getting wet so even a threat of rain would push me up on a friend’s porch as the clouds began to form. I liked becoming accustomed to and knowledgable about the weather. I generally liked living in this dynamic changing world, month to month, day to day, even hour to hour.
My father would talk about when the weather was going to change. He’d tell me about clouds, “sailor’s delight and sailor’s warning”; “humidity not the heat” was a phrase I learned from him; winter wasn’t just cold, sometimes it was “bitterly cold”; the notion of “cats and dogs” was also something he said. Weather was fun, exciting, something new every day. Of course, I didn’t have to drive in it but I did have to shovel it, and walk through it, and at times protect myself from it.
I became aware that weather affected me differently than it did my father and other adults. I didn’t have a car but I did have a bike. In snow I’d slip and slide on my bike just like some drivers did in their cars. The rain would spin off the back tires as I rushed to get home during a sudden summer shower. In April I might take a tumble off my bike as it skidded on loose sand thrown down in February to melt ice.
But I was young. I was out in the bitter cold, in rain like cats and dogs, in both the heat and the humidity. A tree branch or that friend’s front porch was my umbrella during a downpour. I didn’t suffer bursitis, wasn’t fearful of slipping on ice, didn’t worry about too much sun or dryness or the roof flying off in a hurricane. These were adult problems. I was a kid. The slipperiness of snow allowed me to sled, or slide, or throw snowballs; a hurricane was high adventure, thunder filled my ears with astonishment, heat and humidity caused me to slow down, talk with my friends in the shade, become contemplative.
There was a manic side too. That’s how I would describe those euphoric feelings in June during the last few days of school with what seemed to an eight year-old the unending days of summer stretching ahead. It’s not too much to say we were giddy with anticipation. But it ends. It ended. But it also begins. It’s beginning. New Years Day. January First.
To kids there are a number of uninteresting holidays. New Year’s Day is one. Christmas is over. Toys are played with, new clothes tried on, candy eaten. The week off from school is just about over. I’m too young to stay up for what adults seem to consider the highlight of the year, the clock striking midnight on New Year’s Eve. My parents did not throw many parties but I do remember coming down the stairs one New Year’s morning to find post party litter in the living room. Napkins, those cone-like party hats, and in the kitchen, empty glasses, stacked-up dishes. If I were lucky I’d find one of those noise makers. You’d blow at one end, the paper flap would unravel and there’d be a noxious squeaking sound. (I find on-line they are called squawker blowouts.) I did not quite know what a hangover was but blowing on that noise maker did not elicit the kindest reaction from my parents who were still in bed when I started making my post-party racket.
There was a parade on TV. Didn’t care. We had a special holiday dinner. Usually ham. Didn’t like ham. To me New Year’s Day was simply the beginning of the six weeks before February vacation. Maybe though, if I’m lucky, sometime between now and then, there’d be a snow day. But first it had to snow.
The heat clicks on. I feel the warm air begin to fill the living room. Holidays are over. We’re back to our usual routine. I’m on the couch watching Badge 714, the syndicated version of Dragnet. Supper has been eaten. It’s been snowing since early afternoon. I hear my father in the next room. I know what’s coming next. It’s been a family tradition during snow storms since we moved to Hyde Park.
My dad walks over to the front door and opens it. He flicks on the outside light. My brothers and I gather around him. We have a storm door between us and the snow outside, the screens switched out for glass since late October. It’s against this glass that the snow has piled up. A few hours ago there was less of it; a few hours from now it will climb a few inches higher. My father loves watching the snow as it creeps up, inch by inch, against the outside glass. This in spite of the fact he’ll be driving through it tomorrow morning on the way to work.
For now we’re safe and warm enjoying the spectacle in front of us. The front yard, filled with snow, glows with the light on, the front hedges almost buried. The street is dark and quiet. There are no cars. The icy flakes of snow drift down, or if there is wind, and wind during a snow storm always increases the drama, the flakes are hurled sideways making a faint rattling sound as they blow against the glass. Sometimes the trees in front disappear a few moments as the wind whips the snow into a whiteout.
Lovely as it is, the front yard seems distant, unfamiliar. This is where I pushed the lawn mower last summer. Now that grass is covered in a foot of white. The walkway is gone, and the front stairs are just a softly-molded impression. Sometimes, with effort, my father would push open the door, reach out and knock the snow off the mailbox.
Every hour or so during the evening my father would repeat this ritual, opening the front door as we gathered around, appraising how much more snow had piled up against the glass since the last look. It was an endearing tradition during snow storms for many years at my house. I don’t ever recall opening the door myself to look out. My father was the one in charge.
There were snowstorms and then there were blizzards, a particular combination of heavy snow, low temperatures and wind. The world outside our front door was most impressive during a blizzard. And a bit scary. I could see myself walking around outside during an ordinary storm but, with wind-driven blinding snow hitting you in the face, a blizzard was best experienced with storm door glass as a buffer.
Late at night as a blizzard raged outside, I’d wake up, listen as the wind swept across the roof, and pull the blankets tighter around me as if acknowledging the only thing between me and the elements was that roof a few feet above my head. A lot to do tomorrow. Shoveling out. Traipsing through heavy snow to see how my friends survived the storm. But what I was really hoping for was that classic early morning radio announcement. “All schools. No school. Boston.” Somewhere a window rattled. I’m a character in my father’s poem. Snug and cozy, I turn on my side and fall back to sleep.
Snow is different in the morning. Lots of light now even though it may still be snowing. Blinding glare if the sun is out. Opening the front door is not as special. No dramatic vistas of white and dark. Now everywhere you look there is snow. In the yard, the driveway, the street, heaped on roofs, even in the trees. All that snow. To play in, to throw at each other, to sled in, to shovel, and to try to get to work in.
I’d walk to school in the snow but my father had to drive to work. After 1959 he drove a Volkswagen Beetle. Quite a change from our previous car, a Ford station wagon. The VW had its problems but one of its strengths was its maneuverability in snow. The little “bug” with its small engine in the back and sloping front hood was reinforced underneath with a steel plate covering the bottom like a turtle. This served as protection from rocks and other hazards but also acted as a sort of sled in snow. It allowed my father to get into work and home again during storms when others couldn’t.
My dad was an electrician at the power plant at the Boston Navy Yard in South Boston. During the cold war it was an essential job so that weather couldn’t be an obstacle in getting to work. This is where the VW proved its worth.
It’s late afternoon, cold. It’s been snowing since morning. The driveway is full of snow. I was out earlier shoveling the front of the driveway so my father will have a place to pull into, if he makes it home from work. The TV says driving is difficult.
That evening’s adventure is a story my father told often. When he managed to get to his parked car at the Navy Yard it had pretty much disappeared under the snow. All around him people are working to dig out their own cars. “They were amazed,” my father told us later, “when I opened my door, slid in, started the VW, got out, quickly brushed the snow off the front and back windows, got back in and started forward through two feet of snow.”
The VW’s rear engine gave the back end enough traction to move the car forward. It helped that my father attached chains to the back wheels as well. He was driving out of the parking lot when everyone else was still digging out.
The main roads in Boston had either been plowed once or twice at that point in the evening or the traffic had flattened the snow sufficiently that driving in the VW wasn’t too bad. The problems began when my father got closer to home.
Brush Hill Road in Milton that snowy night was long and dark and unplowed. When my father began to make the turn onto Brush Hill from Truman Highway, he spotted an obstacle. “The plow had come along Truman Highway pushing up a wall of snow blocking the entrance to Brush Hill,” he explained. He revved the VW’s little engine and thanks to the steel plate underneath was able to glide up and over the snowbank like a toboggan.
It wasn’t an easy drive up Brush Hill. The snow was still coming down making visibility limited. But thanks to the rear traction and the turtle plate my father was able to make steady if slow progress. We lived on a hill so the final obstacle was up Fairmount Avenue. If I were looking out the front window I’d see the glow of small yellow headlights of a car turning up Prospect Street. The headlights would blink out as the car, my father’s VW, pulled into the spot I had made for him in our driveway. There’d be a stamping of feet on our back porch before the door opened. He made it. He was home. Another successful trip in the VW snow cat.
In spite of its success in the snow the Volkswagen was a primitive machine. I know. It’s the car I learned to drive on. An engine needs a lot of air and a little gas when it’s first started. Cars now have automatic chokes to regulate that air/fuel mixture. In the VW there was a pull knob on the dashboard, a manual choke, which had to be pulled out before turning the key. Sometimes it would stick.
One bright blue-sky morning in winter I am out shoveling the driveway from last night’s storm. I’ve been digging out the VW so my father can come out to get it going. Pulling out the choke he turns the key. Something must be frozen because the engine roars to life, not at idle speed, at top speed. It’s as if my father has his foot fully on the gas pedal. But he doesn’t. He walks to the back of the car opening up the lid to the engine compartment to see what’s wrong.
It’s noisy, like a trio of lawn mowers all going at once. He reaches in, starts to fiddle with the carburetor. Meanwhile all the ice and snow on the back of the car begins to drip, then pour off the car in cascades of water. I won’t have to brush that snow off at least.
After squirting some deicer into the engine the roar diminishes to the pleasant cackle of a VW at idle. Some of the melted snow from the car is already refreezing on the driveway as my father pulls out and I go back to shoveling.
I don’t know why I remember so well such an ordinary moment. It was the day I learned what a choke was. But mostly those few minutes were highlighted by the noise of the racing engine, the drip of the water, the otherwise cold air I was breathing in. So it wasn’t smell that encapsulated the memory through time, although it often is; it was sound. Just an ordinary moment. Life is all about ordinary moments.
The VW was the car I rode in and learned to drive on when I turned 16. It’s the family car I remember the best. I liked it. It was unique. Unusual. Good as it was in snow, it wasn’t really much of a vehicle for winter driving.
I am a senior in high school. My older brother has been home for a few days. He’s in the Army stationed in Burlington, a town north of us along Route128. It’s been a day of rain, sleet and snow. My father is driving Ralph back to the base at 9 pm. He asks if I’d like to come along. The back seat of the VW was small, cramped, unadorned. That’s where I am as my father pulls out of the driveway. Weather not too bad. Just rain.
We head up 128, turn off at Burlington, drive up the guard post. I figured this is where Ralph would get off. No. After talking with the on-duty MP, Ralph gets back in the car, the gate is opened and we drive through. “ Straight here,” Ralph directs my father. “Take a right. Park here.” We stop near a small building. “C’mon, Billy,” my father says to me. “You have to see this.”
Through a heavy door, we walk down a flight of metal stairs, through another door, and there it is, in the middle of a large room. A Nike guided missile. This is amazing. Right in front of me, a thin, white Nike rocket, fins in the back, tapering off to a needle point. I am actually familiar with this rocket. A couple of years ago I had put together a plastic model of this same missile from a Revell kit. Now here it is, all grown up, in front of me.
Walking around the multi-million dollar defensive weapon, I realize it could be shot off at any moment. Maybe Russian bombers are showing up on radar right now as they fly over the pole toward Boston. The possibility of such a confrontation between planes and missiles was the reason I spent so much time in hallways and basements during school air raid drills.
Kennedy is president, very conservative in dealing with Russia. The cold war is hot. The Bay of Pigs fiasco was just last year. The Cuban missile crisis is just a few months in the future. I can just imagine the roof of this missile pod beginning to open to the sky, the cold rain coming in, the rocket glistening, ignition, a roar of yellow flame, and then powering off to protect Filene’s basement from nuclear destruction.
None of that happened. My father is telling me he had asked Ralph to set this up beforehand. My father was always interested in the latest technology. Here it was, big time. Interestingly, though, my father and I were unauthorized persons. We didn’t have clearance to be here. I think I loved that the most. My Dad and I could have been spies reporting back to Russia. “Comrades. We must face the truth. I have seen the missile. Filene’s basement is impervious to our bombers.”
I’m in the front seat of the VW on the drive back. Winter has reasserted itself. The rain has succumbed to dropping temperatures becoming freezing rain. And there is no worse place to freeze upon than the VW’s tiny windshield.
The bug has an air-cooled engine. No water to boil over in the summer; none to freeze in the winter. But water retains heat better than the cold winter air that flows around the car’s hot engine. The defroster is on but the air it delivers from the engine to the windshield is tepid at best.
The rain striking the windshield instantly turns to ice. Seen through this thin glaze, the lights of the on-coming traffic turn into abstract glowing patterns. Pretty but maybe not the best viewing while driving on 128.
My father is more than familiar with the deficiencies of his vehicle. “The engine is so small it just doesn’t have the capacity to heat the incoming air enough to defrost the windshield,” he’s telling me. The wipers are on but the only clear part of the windshield is at the very bottom. Not enough to see unless you scrunch down and look out through the steering wheel. That is not my father’s style.
We pull over. His secret weapon is deicer which he sprays on the windshield. He also knocks accumulated ice off the wiper blades. We set off again but it’s not an ideal solution. Ice continues to build up. We stop, scrape, deice, drive another few miles.
Inside the car it’s dark and cold. Any available heat is going toward the windshield. I can’t see out my side of the front window. There’s more ice on my side, the attention going to the window my father is trying to see through, but I feel I’m doing my part in getting us home. Adjusting the heat while my father drives. Keeping an eye out for other traffic. Soon we are on Brush Hill Road. The freezing rain lets up.
These small moments are what I cherish most about my time with my father. Coming home that night from the Nike site, I had trouble seeing out the front window, but my dad was driving. I knew he’d get us home safely, and he did. I liked being in the car with him late on a school night. We shared a special time. We were in the weather, together.
From a fairly early age in Hyde Park I did most of the snow shoveling. I quickly learned that wet snow was heavy, dry snow was light and fluffy. A few inches of snow might require as little as a half hour’s work. A foot or more of snow might require you to start the job one morning and come back the next day to finish. The fact that I was using a coal shovel and not a lighter aluminum snow shovel made the job more difficult..
Back in Jamaica Plain we heated the house on Adams Circle with coal. There was a bin full of it in the cellar. My father, and sometimes my mother, would shovel it into the roaring furnace. That is the shovel I used for snow. A coal shovel. It was heavy, a little too big for me but it was cut flush at the edge. It did hold a good helping of snow but otherwise it was unwieldy. It was all I had.
The sun may be shining brightly on a winter morning after a big storm but it doesn’t add much warmth for the task at hand. I open the back door, my monster coal/snow shovel in hand. If the snow is dry and fluffy I can do the back porch and stairs with a broom. Otherwise it’s a clumsy few minutes clearing the snow with the shovel.
Then I make a path to the street by the side of the house. I prefer to shovel the driveway in from the street rather then out from the back porch. If the snow has no weight it’s easier to lift in spite of the awkwardness of the shovel but once you toss it to the side the wind would take it, blur it into a powder and blow it back in your face, and back onto the driveway. Sometimes I’d find myself in a mini whiteout. Other times the snow was icy making the shoveling more difficult. The snow would stick to the shovel. Over and over again I tap it against the driveway to knock off the excess. This was no fun. My father had a contingency plan though.
When we knew a storm was brewing, my father would take the shovel into the cellar, light a candle and drip the hot wax over the metal surface. When I started shoveling, the snow would slide right off. This is great. For a while. Then more sticking. I kept at it hoping the sun would help out by melting whatever snow was left after my first pass at shoveling. Often, though, there were icy patches I wasn’t able to clear since the temperatures didn’t rise out of the 20s.
After finishing with the driveway, I’d cut a path just behind the back porch and across the patio to the cellar entrance. The stairs down to the cellar were covered with two wooden doors which opened up and out. We called it the bulkhead. The path to the bulkhead was mostly to facilitate getting my bike out of the cellar. Once the streets were relatively free of snow I’d be on the bike, cold or not. My bike was a year-round conveyance when I was a kid.
I got tired but once I finished in the back I’d return the driveway, neaten a bit around the cellar window or clean up a ridge of snow by the street if a plow had come by. Sometimes I’d just stand there in the freshly cleaned driveway feeling the cold wind in my face, scrunching my hands up into fists inside my mittens to warm them, wondering how the grass was faring deep under this sea of white. I’d watch a snow eddy travel across a neighbor’s front yard before collapsing in a pile of sparkling dust. I’d feel the cold beginning to seep deeper into me. It’s time to go in. I’m going to enjoy my lunch, a grilled cheese sandwich and potato sticks.
In the aftermath of the bigger storms, my older brother and I would each grab a shovel to go off into the neighborhood to see if someone wanted their driveways cleaned. It was work but if people weren’t too fussy about the results you could make some money. Sometimes we’d come back with as much as 10 dollars in our pockets, two or three driveways worth. Then there was that woman on Summit Street who, after we finished, came out to chastise us on what a poor job we had done. We did a little more work to trim the edges to her satisfaction but then there was another complaint about not shoveling more of the street in front of her driveway. “Well, isn’t that the snowplow’s job?” I’d say to myself. We did a little more and then asked to be paid. She was still reluctant. “We did a good job,” my brother argued. “It’s better than any other driveway on this street,” he said swinging his arms in every direction. We eventually were paid but mentally crossed her house off our list the next time it snowed.
But it wasn’t all work. As a young kid, both in Hyde Park and Jamaica Plain, the phrase “winter wonderland” could be taken quite literally. How cold it was didn’t make any difference when I went out. The only time I can recall being cold was in the middle of the summer at the beach when the cold ocean would chill you through. Besides, after a morning of playing in the snow and wind there was always the warm house to return to.
As a six year-old in Jamaica Plain my clothes would be soaked after a morning of snowballing or snowman making or sledding. I'd stand in the kitchen on a rug of newspapers while my mother helped me take off the wet things. Frostbite, hypothermia, no worries; I was at such a high level of activity my body temperature would act as a shield to any deleterious effects of ice and snow. Not so my clothes. As I took my winter outerwear off in the house, the cuffs of the pants and the sleeves of the coat would be ringed with a stiff caking of clumped snow. The clothes would be hung over radiators filling the house with the odor of damp wet warmth. My hands and feet, and cheeks, red and stiff, begin to thaw. I’m ready for lunch. Scotch Broth soup. When I’m finished I’ll start the process all over again with a whole afternoon outside.
At age nine in Hyde Park I was still oblivious to the cold but because I was older and beginning to react to the social pressure, that is, other kids teasing you, I wouldn’t be caught dead outside in “snow pants”. I’d wear less clothes, maybe just a jacket and pants along with mittens. Snow balling, snowman making, running around, sledding, all of these activities generated the necessary warmth.
Sometimes I’d sled in the backyard but there wasn’t much room so the rides were slow and brief. Occasionally you’d convince another kid to pull you. But that gets old fast. “I’m tired.” “Your turn to pull me.” “No. Pull yourself.”
Sledding on the street was the best. Remember I lived on a hill. But there was a very brief window during which this was even possible. It had to be cold enough so that after the plows went by there was still a layer of packed snow and ice covering the street. The city didn’t salt the side streets like they might today so that if it were cold enough whatever snow was left after a couple of runs by the plow wouldn’t melt. Then there was the sun factor. If the sun was shining the hard packed snow left by the plows would begin to soften, reducing the speed of your sled. So, the ideal conditions for sledding on the street were a cloudy day, cold temperatures and within a few hours of the plows going by. And, ultimately, lots of crazy sledders.
By far the best place to sled was the bottom of Prospect Street. You’d be moving at a pretty good clip by the time you made the turn onto Williams Avenue. But it was crazy dangerous since cars coming along Williams to make the right turn onto Prospect did not have a clear view until they were in the middle of the turn. In summer there might be the occasional bike rider to be concerned about. In winter, after a good storm, there were sometimes dozens of sledders coming down Prospect.
It’s a Saturday afternoon. The whole neighborhood must be here. Everyone seems to know this special time won’t last long. Mostly sleds but a few saucers which were then coming into vogue. To get the momentum I need I start about midway up Prospect where Skyline Road intersects. My sled is small, but it’s the classic Flexible Flyer, wicked fast with a cross piece at the front for steering.
Some kids would pick up their sleds, throw them down on the snow-covered street and then jump on. This got you going fast. I preferred the method of lying on the sled first and then pushing off with my hands on either side. I begin to pick up speed, the cold air in my face. Now I’m just behind someone else. Snow and ice shoot from the back of their sled. I steer around them. I find the tracks of previous sleds, begin to pick up more speed, the runners making that rackety sound as the sled shifts back and forth down the hill. I’m making the turn. No cars. Avoid a kid walking back in the middle of the street! I’m beginning to slow down. Exhilarating.
Now the boring part. The walk back up. I have to be careful to avoid other sleds. Most kids are lying down but a few are seated using their feet to steer, not their hands. Once in a while a sled comes by with no one on it. That’s happened to me. To avoid a crash I’d roll off the sled. Most of the time the sled would stop after hitting the snow piled on the side of the street but sometimes it would continue straight down the street with you running after it. No ride but you still have to retrieve the sled and then walk all the way back. But you don’t want to be on the sled when it crashes. Some kids would cut their lips, bloody a nose, even break their sleds. I didn’t want to be them. Have fun but be safe. Yeah, that’ll work.
The truth was Saturday afternoons on lower Prospect were barely controlled pandemonium. Especially as the sun began to set just after 4 o’clock. A sled comes racing by me as I walk back up. A kid comes tumbling off his sled, the empty sled heading right for me. Two more kids go by trying to stay side by side. Everyone’s face is red, their noses runny. “Car!” I hear someone yell. I don’t know what the drivers experienced as they suddenly turned into this scene. Panic? Anger? I swerved more than once to avoid a driver. Maybe during that limited sledding season we felt the cars intruded on us and not the other way around. You had to sled on the street. The sleds would make the packed snow icy and fast. Too fast at times. Lots of wipe outs now. And the fading light makes it even more fun/dangerous. Sledding in the twilight with some additional light supplied by street lights and house lights is like sledding in the most perfect conditions imaginable. Idealized pandemonium.
There was a communal feel to it as well. If a kid didn’t have a sled he’d piggy back on top of someone else. Most of the time he’d fall off before making it to the bottom. Lots of screams. Mostly with excitement. Sometimes to acknowledge a bloody nose. There was a mix of all ages. The younger kids were at a disadvantage because the older kids were more aggressive. Twelve year-olds were older kids to me. More than once as I was sledding down, picking up speed, trying to control the clumsy steering, one of those bigger kids would swing his sled in front of mine and then try to pull it back just in time as I shot by. Sometimes he’d miscalculate. I’d slam his sled to the side and keep going or try to steer away at the last second and loose control.
Other times kids would hit you with snowballs on the way down. I even had a kid try to jump on top of me as I careened along. He missed and ended up tumbling behind me. Lots of craziness as more and more kids joined in. It was not an activity for the meek. To get the rides you wanted, fast, thrilling, even a bit out of control, you had to ride right into the middle of the chaos. Run after run. Avoiding the cars. Avoiding the 12 year-olds. Avoiding all the other riders. Hoping for the best. Not wanting to waste a run. It was exciting.
Now I’m tired. Maybe a little bruised. I’ve run my last run for today. I’m trudging up Prospect, dragging my sled behind me, rope in hand. My mittens are wet, boots are unbuckled, hat askew. I actually feel, what is that, oh, yeah, cold. A supper of Chicken Noodle soup and crackers will revitalize me soon enough.
We had a working fireplace in our house on Prospect Street to “take the chill off” as my father put it. It could be quite cozy on a January night once the flue was adjusted and the logs were snapping and crackling in the yellow blue flames. Getting it started was a chore though. My mother was not an enthusiastic participant as she worried about the dirt and especially the smoke. Unless the flue was adjusted properly smoke would initially waft into the living room. Even when the flue was adjusted there was always the smell of smoke in the house. But one evening there was a near catastrophe.
My father had a cardboard box he wanted to get rid off so after he had started the fire using crumpled newspaper and small kindling, he pushed the cardboard box in. What happened next was certainly not we expected. A shimmering blue flame shot up the front side of the box. Within seconds the whole box ignited, the flames jumping outside the fireplace enveloping the edge of the mantle above. I’m watching in awe. Is the ceiling next, I’m thinking?
It happened so fast that before my father could act the flames blistered the white paint on the mantel and then leapt even higher. We had a model of an old sailing ship on that mantle complete with intricate rigging made from thread. Some of those threads lit up instantly turning to ash before my father could snatch the ship away.
Grabbing a wrought iron poker my father collapsed the sides of the box which quickly quashed the flames as well. I’m still just sitting there in amazement. It was so odd to see flames in a place where you would never expect them. My mother’s fear was realized. The living room was now full of smoke. Windows were open letting the cold winter air in. It would be a while before the house warmed up again.
On the occasional Sunday morning, conditions being right, temperatures below freezing, not much snow, we would go ice skating. I didn’t ice skate. Neither did my younger brother. For us it was chance to go slippy sliding. But I still told my friends, “I went ice skating yesterday,” when the only two actually skating were my father and older brother.
After my grandmother died, my grandfather moved to a smaller house by a lake in Stoughton. The proximity of the lake to his house made it ideal for skating or, in my case, ice walking. His modest house was by the side of a narrow canal which fed from the lake. When my father would visit it would give me a chance to use the canal as a way to walk out onto the frozen expanse of the lake.
It was important that I didn’t slip, have my feet swept out from under me. I didn’t want to hit my head or break anything. Every movement was in slow motion until I began to feel somewhat comfortable shuffling along. On a sunny late morning there were a number of skaters zipping around. What I wanted to find was a clear patch of ice, like a window, so I could look though to see to the bottom. But the ice was rippled or opaque or scratched up from the skating. Still, I liked being out there under the dome of sky, on the hard surface, in a place I could never be in summer.
Further away from shore the wind would pick up. Loose snow would dance on the ice, swirl around me. I’d try to get out to the middle of the lake but the white cracks underfoot would make me nervous. “Those cracks are nothing dangerous,” my father would tell me. He said it was too cold for the ice to melt. The cracks were from the ice expanding and contracting from day to night. I also wondered where the fish were. I’d kneel down at a crack to look through the milky ice hoping I’d see a fish swim by.
“Where are the fish now? Are they frozen?” I’d ask. My father knew all about the fish too. “No,” he said, “there at the bottom, not doing much. Waiting for spring.”
Sometimes a skater would glide by pulling a sled with a kid on it. I thought how much I’d love to be that kid. I’d watch how the skater would dig a skate into the ice and then push off on it and then repeat the process with the other skate. Fine shavings of ice would litter his path as he made his way across the lake.
Once got used to being on the ice, I’d run a few steps and then abruptly stop, my feet together, the momentum carrying me along in a slide. Or I’d try to emulate the motions of a skater, trying to push my boots into the ice so I could move forward. The boots were too clumsy, the ice too slippery. Sometimes with nothing in its way the wind was almost strong enough to push me along.
As interesting as it was as a space, the lake was just too big and too cold for a non-skater to spend much time on. A much different environment for skating, and ice walking, was the Neponset River Reservation, an estuary with freshwater wetlands just off Brush Hill Road across from a large estate housing the Capuchin Friars, a religious order of missionaries. There were a few other houses along with the religious community but back in the late 50s the river and natural surroundings dominated.
A Sunday morning in winter. Not a lot of snow but it’s been cold. That means ice on nearby ponds and lakes, and at the Reservation. The skates my father and brother use are of brown leather with lots of lacing and bright sharp blades. I believe they belonged to my grandfather years ago. Maybe Hans Brinker before that. They looked that old.
The thing I liked best about skating on the Neponset wetlands was how unique it was. This wasn’t a lake, clear and open. I think of the lake in Stoughton as being outside; skating on the marsh was almost like being inside. It had an intimate feel. The Neponset was basically a swamp. To skate it you had to be aware of the obstacles: tufts of grass in the middle of the ice, small wooded islands, even open areas of water depending on the flow of the river. None of the water was very deep. It was as if the fields behind my house had been flooded with a foot of water and then frozen. Due to the limited depth, much of the vegetation remained above the ice.
So ice skating was a bit of a challenge. You’d find a pathway of ice that wove in between the features of the swamp trying to stay away from the shore line where the ice was thinner. Just a few inches underneath the ice was a very real world of flowing water and mud that ebbed back and forth even in winter from the tides of the nearby Atlantic Ocean into which the Neponset River flowed.
I never felt uneasy walking around on that ice knowing it wasn’t very deep. There was so much to see. The ice was alternately rippled or smooth, clear or opaque, free of impediments or obstructed with protruding reeds and clusters of cordgrass. The shoreline was difficult to ascertain since the river and marsh wove in and out of it. Sometimes there’d only be a few feet of ice to skate on between the shore and a small island. Sometimes a skater would have to maneuver around an intruding bit of land to get to more ice. It wasn’t the best area for free-form skating but it was a great place for a non-skating kid to explore.
Stepping onto the ice you were never far away from an interesting place to walk to. I liked the little islands. Unless I had a little skiff, these were spots I wouldn’t be able to get to in summer. I’d kneel down on the ice just where it ended and the land began. Grass would be sprouting. Looking down you could see the stalk of grass continuing under the ice until it disappeared in the darkness.
I’d walk up onto the land, crunching through the crusted ice, maybe sit by a tree for a few minutes, watch my brother glide by before venturing onto the ice again. Not as much wind as there is on a lake. It’s cold though, the dampness beginning to seep into you. To help with that my father brought along hand warmers, palm-size metal utensils that used lighter fluid to release heat. You’d hold them in your glove or slip into your pocket. With your hands warm the rest of your body seemed to warm up as well.
On a few occasions my father would gather some sticks and using dry grass as tinder light a small fire on the ice. We’d gather around it, feel the heat on our faces and hands, unzip our jackets a little bit, and warm up.
The ice under the fire would begin to soften. A wisp of steam would drift up into the cold January air. There was a sizzling sound as the ice began to melt. Of course as soon as we put out the fire the ice would quickly refreeze but it was a harbinger of things to come. When the days become warmer, the ice will transition to a certain softness. Not ice, not water. You won’t be able to skate on it, or walk on it. Puddles will spread over the ice before the brackish water of the marsh reasserts itself. The blades and tufts of grass are released. The islands are no longer walkable. Soon all the lakes and ponds will belong to swimmers and boaters, not to skaters and ice walkers.
Early in March I know spring has arrived. I don’t rely on any date on the calendar, a weather event, or a number on the thermometer. It may still be cold. There may even be a March blizzard. Doesn’t matter. The first week of March is significant to me. It’s my birthday. Spring is here.
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