On a Slippery Slope

When life gets to be tough sledding, grab a sled and find a hill.

I'm pretty sure I knew that once upon a time, but had forgotten it until Saturday. It came back to me as I stood atop the vast sledding hill next to Bowman Woods Elementary School along Boyson Road. Legions of laughing, yelling kids and a few adults scrambled up the hillside with one thing in mind: the need for snow-packed speed.

My daughter, Tess, turns 8 this week. She wanted a sledding party. I think she's a little jealous of her little sister, born in the heat of mid-July. Ella's parties feature pools, sprinklers, water balloons and snow cones. Tess, a winter lover, was determined to bust outside. And fortunately, the birthday gods gave her a perfect January day.

It's probably been almost 20 years since the last time I rocketed down a hillside on a piece of Chinese plastic. As a child, sledding was a daily winter ritual. On weekends, after school, during holiday break, it's what you did for hours and hours.

Maybe there were a few snowforts or snowmen or snowball fights in between, but sledding was king. Saucers, toboggans, plastic roll-up models and my personal favorite: metal and wood runner sleds with less-than-reliable steering. You cruised down and climbed up until frostbite or dinnertime intervened.

And one of the best things about remembering all that Saturday was forgetting all about a bunch of other stuff for a couple of hours. The worst news you get on a sledding hill is that it's time to go home.

Nobody was bickering about health care reform leading to socialism or climate change leading to the end of the world or same-sex marriage leading to the end of civilization or how our nation, state, county and the city are all careening toward oblivion. It turns out I had to find a slippery slope to get away from arguments about slippery slopes.

So I sat down in a purple plastic sled with my youngest daughter on my lap, clutching a thin strand of yellow rope. I slowly pushed us forward. We began to pick up speed.

After a few seconds of terror, mostly for unfortunate people coming up the hill in my path, steering came back to me.

We shot down the hill, at speeds approaching 1,000 mph, and set off a sonic boom that shook nearby windows and likely spawned frenzied calls to local authorities. We hit several massive moguls, which sent us sailing, briefly, into low earth orbit. I then deployed reverse thrusters and parachutes to stop us just short of the parking lot.

Well, that's sort of how it happened. Guinness will be calling any minute now.

When asked if that was fun, Ella said “Uh huh.” Clearly, my piloting skill left her almost speechless.

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