Bunkhouse. U-shaped dinette. Under 4,000 pounds. Murphy bed.
Sadly, my website filter settings have yielded few local results this week as I’ve been combing through RV sales websites.
We’re ready to escape the Indiana winter and replace it with balmy temperatures. A low of 50 degrees would be perfect. We’d even take 40 degrees, now that the winds are howling and sleet has created roads that the school buses aren’t willing to navigate.
What happened to the winter of my youth? I must’ve been heartier back then. And had a higher baseline internal temperature.
Bundling up in layers of long underwear and sweaters, thick winter coats with scarves wound twice around our necks, and a hood pulled tight and tied in a bow, along with two or three pairs of socks and moon boots, was the standard process when it snowed back in those days.
Out the back door and through the enclosed porch, my siblings and I gradually ventured into Mother Nature’s walk-in freezer to make snow forts in the ditches after the plows had scraped past our house. With any luck, the snow skittering across our icy, north-south county road would drift it closed again. Then we’d be rewarded with a snow day announced the next morning on WLBC.
I’d swear the snow was deeper back then…and not just because we were shorter.
We’d scuddle through the heavy, wet stuff searching for the random, waist-high drifts to dig into, hide behind as snowballs came whizzing past, or use as mini sledding slopes. We didn’t seem to care when our boots filled with snow or our wrists–or noses–turned red and crusted over with ice.
Sometimes, when a coldsnap came early, the cornfield beside our farmhouse flooded and then froze. We could lace up our old skates on the porch and then wobble our way to the field to “skate.” We’d take a few tentative steps and be rewarded with a short glide before hitting the remnants of a cornstalk and landing on our knees and mittened hands. It provided a few minutes of fun before the short walk back to the porch to sweep ourselves off and start the warm-up process.
One year, I had the notion that I’d be a much better skater if only I had a smooth surface, not one filled with frozen furrows and harvest debris. It may have been the winter after I’d earned my roller skating badge in Girl Scouts. Roller skating was almost like ice skating, right? My sister and I bundled up and decided to follow our older brothers to a pond in the woods, a half mile or so north of our house. Skates tied and hung around our necks, we soon lagged behind the boys, who really wanted nothing to do with us, but we trudged onward.
Once we arrived at the path that led to the pond, the woods blocked some of the wind from the open fields. That was encouraging. It was warmer than the field, and someone had started a small fire. Maybe this would be a better place to show off my skills! We sat on a nearby log, removed our boots, and laced up our skates. Oddly, though, my ankles still wobbled a bit as I made my way through the underbrush to the ice. But that didn’t matter. I was ready to join the other kids and show my true skills!
Herking and jerking with my arms flailing around the frozen surface once or twice was enough for me. I quickly realized that it didn’t matter whether I skated on a frozen field or a smooth pond or what my Girl Scout badge suggested. My ankles ached, and my toes were freezing. Ice skating was not my sport. I convinced my sister, who was skating just fine, to leave with me. We changed back into our boots, tied our skates together, and bundled up for the windy walk back home, edging along our grandparents’ snowy fields.
Papaw was a part-time farmer of 100 acres adjacent to our house, and like many farmers during heavy snowfalls, he spent his non-working hours plowing out the driveways of his two kids living nearby and his neighbors. When they were reasonably clear, he monitored the nearby county roads for overly confident drivers who’d found themselves in the ditch with no way out. Bundled up tightly, he would chug along the roads on his big green Oliver or 4-wheel drive Jeep truck, ready with a chain to hook onto the errant vehicle and set it back on its way. Sometimes, he’d stop at our house for a few minutes to get warm. He’d shake his head in disbelief as he told us about the most recent foolhardy person who thought driving on a country road in such weather was a good idea.
One winter day when I was in elementary school, we heard the chugging of his tractor coming down the road and expected to hear about his latest rescue. We gathered at the kitchen picture window to watch him come down our long drive but gaped at what we saw. The tractor pulled a long row of sleds, all roped together. Sitting on the middle one was our grandmother! She waved at us to join her.
We’d never dressed in our winter clothes so quickly! Packed tightly onto the sleds and hanging on for dear life, all of us bounced across the flat, snowy fields. We made a giant loop around the farm and then whizzed back home on the icy roads, our faces red with cold and excitement. We didn’t mind the freezing temperature or the wind. When we got back into the house, Mom had made hot cocoa to help us warm up after we’d peeled off our wet clothes to throw in the dryer and hung our scarves and mittens on the wooden clothes rack to dry.
As a teenager, I discovered downhill sledding, a treat that only happened at the hilly parks in our nearby city, and only when we had transportation that included space for kids and sleds. Steering was always a challenge on the newer plastic sleds that were replacing the old-style wooden ones with metal runners, but the new ones were faster, especially if the snow hadn’t packed yet. So we usually left Dad’s old sled at home.
When I was a freshman in high school, my youth group went sledding at Westside Park. The hill there wasn’t as high as the Soap Box Derby hill at McCullough, but Westside was closer to home and less crowded. During Sunday School, we debated our options for an outing later that afternoon. Someone mentioned the abundance of trees at Westside, but because the hill wasn’t steep, we figured we could manage.
My mind was racing when we arrived. Flying down the hill flat on my stomach seemed much more exciting than sitting on a sled, so I eagerly grabbed an orange, molded plastic sled, and positioned myself for the steepest path.
I’d just gotten a pair of new glasses, so in a rare moment of early adolescent responsibility, I took them off and handed them to someone without a sled. I took a few hop-skips and threw myself onto the plastic sled, heading down the hill.
Wow! It was fast! Faster than I thought. And I was headed toward the trees! I looked over my right shoulder to check for an oncoming sled. Nothing was coming, so I leaned to my right. Then, just as I looked up, I hit the tree.
Well, my face hit the tree. I rolled off the sled and moaned.
Someone cried out and rushed down the hill to help me.
My face was numb. I didn’t know if it was from the cold snow or the collision. Probably both, I learned later, when I realized my face was covered in scuffed-up abrasions. By the time Monday morning arrived, the scabs made a design that looked an awful lot like the bark of a tree. Luckily, though, my new glasses were safe, even though I couldn’t wear them without pain.
I gave up sledding for a while. Years later, though, we took the kids to the refrigerated toboggan run at Pokagon State Park and returned a few times with exchange students. What a thrill to fly down the quarter-mile, dual sled track at 30-40 miles per hour! Our down-filled coats and Sorel boots kept us so warm that we never even went inside the warming house. After one trip, we’d learned the secret of making the most of our sled rental time: designate a driver to load the toboggan into our vehicle at the bottom of the track and drive it back to the top while the sledders climbed the hill to the launching tower. Now that was a blast!
Overall, I’ve had my share of midwestern winter fun. Enough to tell a few good stories and look back fondly.
But something’s happened. Now, I shiver just looking at my weather app and seeing temperatures below 20 degrees. I tiptoe across the ice, thinking of my knee replacements and the time I slipped on the ice in the supermarket parking lot when I was pregnant thirty-five years ago. If I forget to wear my fuzziest mittens, my fingers turn white and freeze.
My winter fun has practically frozen.
I’m thinking winter in warmer climes might give me the chance to reclaim some of my youthful winter constitution. After all, there’s more than one way to spend January and February!
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