Snow day!

A few weeks ago after our first measurable snow of the year, my husband and I were walking home from the bank. We had just signed some pretty major documents. Feeling a bit overwhelmed from doing the grown-up things in life, I heard it ... kids laughing, screaming, yelling. They were playing on a snow pile.

I grew up in the ‘70s when playing outside in the snow was not an option; it was a requirement! I grew up in the middle of Princeton, so sledding hills were hard to come by. We made our own snow forts, sledding hills and skating rinks. The city trucks would plow the local parking lots and leave us with heaps and hills of snow to sculpt into whatever our imagination could fathom.

We built forts, more like complexes, in the snow. The boys dug their snow club house — no girls allowed! So the girls built their own — no boys allowed! Eventually a truce was called; we tunneled between snow rooms, and we all played together for hours on end, crawling back and forth to visit.

We would sled down the higher piles of snow. What fun a snow hill and an ice-covered parking lot could be! You would see who could sail the farthest across the icy parking lot on their saucer. The older kids would come along and play king of the hill, pretty much tossing the smaller, scrawnier kids to the frozen ground below. One of the neighbor boys “accidentally” hit me in the face with an ice ball. I believe that was my first black eye. I always tried to keep up with the boys, but I was usually the one sent home crying. I’d get even. Once in awhile I would connect with a neighbor boy and a well-aimed snow ball ... even if I did throw like a girl!

We would come in after playing outside all day long with frozen mittens, hats, scarves and boots. We would pile them on the old heat radiators. If there was enough room left, I would climb up there, being careful not to get burned and wrapped in a blanket to thaw out with a cup of hot chocolate.