Sledding

The hill in our back yard has a great incline, and a very sudden stop. The boys and I have been sledding the past couple days, after a surprise snowfall.

We’ve got privacy bushes against the fence at the bottom of the hill, dotted with little blue berries, and conservative-sized, naked afro trees at both corners---four paces from the bottom fence, five or six from the left and right--for symmetry’s sake. These trees and bushes make perfect obstacles for sledding, especially when you consider the abrupt finish.

I sit down on our plastic, bright orange sled first (clumsily), and then one of the boys sits on my lap. I grab the sturdy yellow steering rope, and, digging my heels into dirt, begin us on our descent. It’s slow at first, like a roller coaster I imagine--adding the ch-ch-ch gear sound to create the proper amount of tension--and then we’re off.

There’s a three second window for us to get our feet inside the sled, and to lean back, acquiring maximum speed, dodging an array of low hanging, symmetrical tree limbs and ending up ultimately smashed against a fence, laughing, tangled up in the berried privacy bushes, little blue impact spots splattered on our pants and coats, covered in snow.

I’ve never been able to go down a hill on a sled without shouting, Wa-hoo, Yee-Haw, Wooo!, or some similar thing, and this trait seems to be hereditary.