SNOW

I remember how on snowy days in the late 40s and early 50s when school was cancelled I was layered with two pairs of socks and stuffed into high rubber boots and crammed into some kind of snow suit that prevented all but the most rudimentary kinds of movement and then tumbled out of the house and out the front door, inarticulate and barely mobile, to seek out Tony Howard and Donald Scaccia, all of us with our sleds with ropes tied through the holes on either side of the steering board. And we would slide and sled and bellywhop until we were called back in. I remember how fast the sled would go if there was ice under the snow, and the grating sound of rocks or earth against the runners when the snow cover was meager, and how hard it was to get back up in that snowsuit (an object invented by the devil) after some white wipeout. Our sleds were Flexible Flyers and made of wood with real steel runners. How our young noses ran in the cold, and how much we loved the snow.