I just got in from riding my Wham-O SnowBogie down through the yard. I was going to take a bike ride but it is 28 degrees and I did that yesterday anyway. So, I looked around and realized we have about 5" of hard packed snow, so I dug out the old SnowBogie. Now a SnowBogie is one of those plastic covered foam sled things that they sell now a days. It works pretty well as its pretty smooth on the bottom, not like those old aluminum disks that came out in the early 60's. They worked pretty well until they'd get all dented up and loose their aerodynamic principles. They also hurt more when you'd get hit in the back of the head from one that rocketed off a snow jump with a 100 pound kid on top. Since the snow was hard, I got up to speed pretty fast and was hitting hyperdrive by the time I passed the garden, then as I crossed the bunny trail, I deployed my left rudder to steer around the back of the shed. Quickly I realized the edge of the forest was approaching so I had to drop both snow brakes in an attempt to stop. My snow brakes consist of digging the toes of both MuckLucks into the snow behind me and thus sending 20 pounds of snow up each pant leg and twin rooster tails toward the sky. This slowed me down enough to just tap the wood pile with the crown of my head before stopping. It reminded me of the winter of the legendary toboggan wars. We would pick-up two teams of 4 to 6 or so "Tobagganeers" per sled, and take off down through the corn field in a race to the bottom. But on the way the goal was to wreck the other toboggan and prevent it from completing the course. This was done by leaping from one toboggan to the other and then attempting to throw everyone off or upset the whole kebootal. Usually both toboggans would spin out and wreck in an avalanche of snow, but occasionally one would make it to the bottom. Like the time everyone was thrown from both sleds except D. who rode the remaining one down over the hill......only problem was he didn't come back. So after waiting about 15 or 20 minutes we organized a search party and heading out looking for him. Turns out he hit a fence post and knocked himself out. No big deal as it was the same fence he tried pissing on earlier in the summer just to see if the electric was turned on, it was. The fence wasn't hurt in either encounter so all was well. Later on he joined the Pagans. Did I tell you this before? So anyway the SnowBogie works much better than the old Lightning Glider type of sled, which were mainly made for snow covered city streets. Now that they plow city streets the Old Sledworks down the road from here where Lightning Gliders were made is now an antique mall. .....Gotta go rewarm my hot chocolate.
long time since i been there. my enthusiasm for gravity power quickly waned, when nature brought me to the realization that it would only provide motion in a downhill direction, and any means of returning to a starting position, or traveling beyond the bottom of the nearest incline, required the expenditure of one's own physical energy. i have however, never tired of seeing the world transformed, by a deep thick blanket of freshly fallen snow. nor of watching rotary snow plows on the railway, cutting their neat precise paths through it.
For my brother's birthday it is tradition that we all get dressed and go out sledding at night. As adults now, some whiskey tends to get involved and it's a miraculous time.
