More better memories...
My brother, Don and I played outside a lot with our cousins. In the winter there was plenty of time to do some sledding because it sometimes snowed from late October to April. We’d wax the blades on our sleds and line them up at the top of the hill next to the Landy homes and my grandparents’ restaurant and off we’d go down the hill, sometimes just stopping short of going over the hill. Then we’d pull our sleds back up the hill and do it all over again. We wore those full body winter suits, you know the one Ralphie’s brother wore in the 1983 movie, A Christmas Story. If you haven’t seen it, it is wonderful cute story about a family in the early fifties. My daughters favorite movie, ever. One day I ran smack dab into a fence with my face. When I finished wiping away my tears and feeling my fat lip, I found the rope with my snow filled mittens picked it up and pulled my sled back up the hill and did it all over again.
I remember when the snow melted and we had puddles of water in the yard, I would stand on my sled and use a long stick or branch to try to make it move along as I imagined paddling on the Nile River. Probably got that from a movie or perhaps a past life (?) of which I’m not supposed to believe in…. past lives, not as a Catholic that is. Perhaps it was from my past in Atlantis as a warrior as a woman who read my palm once said. Whatever it was…. imagination or from something long past, it felt familiar and enjoyable.
One time one of our uncles on my mother’s side, Ray took us tobogganing, the dangerous way. It was dark evening when we started and it only got darker and therefore more dangerous. We started at the top of a hilly road. Several of us got on the toboggan, not fearing anything, well because we were young. Down the snowing street we flew. My uncle drove down to the bottom of the street, we all jumped into the car as he tied the what I think was a twelve man toboggan but that could have been a child’s imagination to the back of the car and proceeded to drive back up to the top of the hill so we could do it all over again, and again. What ended our tobogganing evening was when on one of those fast flying trips down the street something happened. All I remember was tumbling over and over with other body parts hitting me and seeing sparks from the blows to my head. I think many of us were crying as we picked ourselves up and my uncle decided that was enough. It was lots of fun though as you can see something I have never forgotten that night.
So there was lots of sledding and even ice skating a time or two in the winters. I don’t remember anything about Halloween as a small child. I do remember Christmas’s while my father was still alive were wonderful. One time when I was about three or four, Santa came to visit and scared me when he came into the door and I ran crying to my mother. Perhaps I felt she loved me then and would protect me.
I remember when the snow melted and we had puddles of water in the yard, I would stand on my sled and use a long stick or branch to try to make it move along as I imagined paddling on the Nile River. Probably got that from a movie or perhaps a past life (?) of which I’m not supposed to believe in…. past lives, not as a Catholic that is. Perhaps it was from my past in Atlantis as a warrior as a woman who read my palm once said. Whatever it was…. imagination or from something long past, it felt familiar and enjoyable.
One time one of our uncles on my mother’s side, Ray took us tobogganing, the dangerous way. It was dark evening when we started and it only got darker and therefore more dangerous. We started at the top of a hilly road. Several of us got on the toboggan, not fearing anything, well because we were young. Down the snowing street we flew. My uncle drove down to the bottom of the street, we all jumped into the car as he tied the what I think was a twelve man toboggan but that could have been a child’s imagination to the back of the car and proceeded to drive back up to the top of the hill so we could do it all over again, and again. What ended our tobogganing evening was when on one of those fast flying trips down the street something happened. All I remember was tumbling over and over with other body parts hitting me and seeing sparks from the blows to my head. I think many of us were crying as we picked ourselves up and my uncle decided that was enough. It was lots of fun though as you can see something I have never forgotten that night.
So there was lots of sledding and even ice skating a time or two in the winters. I don’t remember anything about Halloween as a small child. I do remember Christmas’s while my father was still alive were wonderful. One time when I was about three or four, Santa came to visit and scared me when he came into the door and I ran crying to my mother. Perhaps I felt she loved me then and would protect me.