Ice tubing

I remember looking up at the steep hill from the parking lot across the street and thinking something didn't look right.  There were bare, muddy patches here and there between the tracks and the snow looked...shiny.  It had been a sunny winter day and we were arriving to do some night snow tubing.  The melted sections seemed cordoned off from the actual runs and there were little kids everywhere tubing with glee...nothing to worry about.

I had gone snow tubing with this same crew of friends the year before.  It was a blast.  You rode a conveyor belt to the top of the hill, chose a lane and down you went. If you were going too fast you could drag your feet to slow down.  There were four lanes.  The first and closest lane to the conveyor belt looked like the straight down water slides I had avoided my entire childhood, the second had a big S turn in the middle and steep side walls, the third had a few small hills along the run and the last was a bunny slope with a subtle incline.

The smallest of the children shamed us away from the bunny slope, thus we started at lane three.  I went second to last.  I'll be honest, I'm not the most adventurous man in the world.  I've done my fair share of crazy stuff over the last thirty years.  Now I like to pick and choose where to push my luck.  

That year everyone made it down the hill safe and sound.  Before the day was out we were taking running starts, shooting off the jumps, skimming the walls...I even went down backwards on the double tube.  

So when my friends little sister, who also noticed the brown patches and glistening snow, asked if this was OK and relatively safe I answered of course.  I wouldn't be there if it wasn't.  I suggested we watch a few people go down the hill so she could see for herself.

The first two people we watched went down no problem.  Then a small girl from our group went down the second lane.  She took off like a bullet but instead of skimming the side wall she was climbing up it...backwards and she was letting go of the tube.  She sailed into the sky.  Spun.  Separated completely from her tube.  Crashed into the ground below.  Bounced once.  Landed again and didn't move.

I looked around and there was no one but myself and my friend's sister whose eyes were now bigger than dinner plates.

Her- Is she ok?
Me- (taking another peek down the hill) Probably not.
Her- What do we do?
Me- I don't know if anyone down there can see her.

That was when I realized what the problem was...the snow had melted earlier and now a sheen of ice covered the lanes. Thankfully someone down there saw what happened and was able to help her up and off the lane.  Both the first and bunny lanes were muddied out so we could only choose between the middle two lanes.  After explaining the ice situation and the need to drag legs and keep slow we decided the second lane was still our best bet.  She wanted to go first.  She went right down the middle, no problem, and now I was alone at the top.  No other way down.  I grabbed my tube, hugged it tight and went down the slope.

I couldn't believe how fast I was picking up speed and I was heading for the side wall.  I dragged my legs but they just bounced uselessly off the hard snow like a pebble skimming the surface of a pond.  For one fleeting second, as my tube climbed up the side wall, I thought about letting go. I was pretty sure I was going for a flight anyways, maybe bailing early was a good idea. Thankfully I held on and gravity prevailed.

When I reached bottom I could tell my legs were banged up.  Half the group didn't notice the big fall or the icy conditions and continued to tube.  The other half were sitting it out for a few.  Most had bruised legs like I did.  The girl who fell said her head and back hurt but that she was fine. When the rest of the group noticed our absence they found us on the benches.  There was less than an hour of tube time left, we decided to wait it out while the others enjoyed a few more runs.

A few minutes later a tuber staggered by with his lower face looking like something out of a horror movie.

A few minutes after that our group checked in again, assuring us that they had seen no one else get hurt.  It was just a little more slippery than usual.  Aghast at what we had just witnessed we opted to stay put while they took a final run.

It was night of the living dead in scarves and mittens out there.  One by one another injured tuber limped, hobbled or crawled by.  All mumbling about ice, flying and pain.

Snow tubing is fun, ice tubing...not so much.  We're going again this year, I'll let you all know how it goes.

Santa Claus just knows stuff

Santa Claus, jolly old Saint Nick, Father Christmas.
He's climbing in your windows,
he's snatching your milk and cookies up...

I've always been creeped out by the 'he knows if you are sleeping, he knows if you're awake' business.  Nowadays maybe not so much. But back then, without modern technology,  Santa had to be little more than a glorified Peeping Tom.

My parents said that adults everywhere have access to a top secret phone line to the North pole and that when you are naughty they rat you out.

Its a 24/7/363 call center manned by high strung, morally pristine elves who lack any real world perspective on the great grey divide between actual naughty and truly nice. Some otherwise well meaning adult tells on you for not eating your green beans and the easily shocked elf on the line translates that as tantamount to kicking cats and robbing banks. Instant bad kid list.

But how about when no one is watching?  How does Santa find out then?  There has to be a supernatural element to Santa Claus, an omniscience that can be explained no other way.  Santa just knows stuff.  He reads your thoughts.

When attempting the annual seat on Santa's lap it is important to clear your mind.  Naughty thoughts and greedy thoughts must be stuffed way down deep; your mind must be a blank slate.  It is like passing through the sphinx gates to the southern oracle in The Neverending Story.

One impure thought and the reindeer eyes open and you are TOAST!

I usually cannot completely clear my thoughts, instead I would think things like:

"I hope my little brother Dwight gets better, more fun toys than I do."
"I'd be satisfied with even the smallest of Transformers, there are starving children in Africa."
"World peace.  No toys, just peace, I'll get by."

After a few beard tugging incidents my parents explained that Santa Claus has to work through surrogates at the malls and office parties.  He simply cannot personally attend each event. Santa is a busy man.

Pop was a steel welder at a factory. The surrogate Santa at his office party looked like he was in a motorcycle gang and the elves all had overly long arms.

I didn't want to get within snatching distance of those freakishly long arms so I asked the old man if I could skip the lap bit.  Why bother with the surrogates?  If Santa knows whether I behave or not, then he also knows exactly what I want for Christmas. I was assured that it was merely a symbolic gesture and that Mom wanted a picture and if she didn't get one see might telephone the elves.

I tried to duck under the twig-like fingers of the lanky elf but he caught me anyway and placed me on  surrogate Santa's lap.  The man had a voice like a bear roaring down a tunnel made of sandpaper.  He asked what I wanted for Christmas and I froze up. This had to be some mistake.  I looked out at the old man and shook my head.  He wasn't supposed to ask.  I'm just here for the photo. 

Surrogate Santa frowned and asked again.  Mortified, I rapid fire rattled off the names of every toy I could think of.  When I ran out of breath I gasped in terror.  What had I done? No one asks for EVERYTHING.

This was bad.  I was practically begging for coal.  My tiny mind whirled.  I tried to strike up a conversation about school.  I asked about the magical snowmen.  I even tried asking what he wanted for Christmas.

As the elf pulled me away I squirmed around and in desperation shouted one last thing.  I told the surrogate Santa my name was Dwight. 

Now all I had to do was find a certain telephone number...

The Reindeer Teeth Story

Worcester, Baby
Twenty some odd years ago
December

 I saw a reindeer, its teeth at least, floating outside my bedroom window.

We lived on the second floor of a triple decker.  It wasn't snowing and there were no trees or telephone poles outside that particular window.  Just a bunch of open yard.  What I saw was massive and white; and it may well have been the wind blowing a sheet off the upstairs laundry line but at the time I was positive, possibly still am, that I saw reindeer teeth.  So I ran.  In retrospect I see where this could have gone tragically wrong.

Whatever those giant choppers belonged to it was not Rudolph the small smiled, petite reindeer with the doe eyes and the shiny nose.  Nope.  Those teeth belonged to a flying Great White shark of a creature and I was just a little bit of a thing in feety pajamas...and I was running outside.

I have no idea why I went outside but Point A to Point B could have been pretty grim.  Thankfully I hadn't looked up.  If I had I might have lingered at the door with a look on my face, maybe darted out ten feet and attempted retreat, followed by some crawling, some backward crab shuffling and of course the obligatory one stair at a time up to street level.  It would have taken forever, I would have been an amuse-bouche.

Maybe the beast was a vegetarian, but with those pearly whites I doubt it.  Maybe it had been full, stuffed from a night of punishing those on the naughty list.

I made it down the street to the neighbors house and knocked on the door until I woke someone up.  I explained about the reindeer teeth.  I was retrieved by my parents shortly thereafter.  We drank cocoa.  I went back to bed.  It all worked out.

One Christmas after that I remember the Disappearing Santa rule came into play.  Adults explained that Santa was on a tight schedule and would not show up until all the kids in the house were asleep and that if you so much as peeked at Santa the jolly red fella would disappear.  Sometimes he took the toys back too.

I was a little afraid of Santa Claus as a child.  He knew stuff.  And that will be the topic of the next post...

Sand: A love story

This is how most children view the beach.

And this is how I viewed the beach.  I was a pale child.  The sun was not my

friend and I learned to fear and hide from it.  I don't tan.

Not even a little.  I go from ghostly white to boiled lobster crimson in minutes

regardless of whatever sunscreen I lather on.  I burn to a crisp. 

That's me as a child in the center of that towel.

I would sit like that the entire time we were on the

beach.  I loathed sand.  I went to great lengths to avoid getting

any of it on me.  Usually I would be foiled by a combination of sandy

wind and suncreen slicked skin.  After a few scratchy moments I would

get up and march into the chilly Atlantic to wash it off.

My younger brother was the opposite.  He practically ate sand.

He built sandcastles.  He buried himself in the stuff.

When it was time to go I would fill a pail full of ocean water and

lug it back across the hot sand and up to the sidewalk.  That way I could

wash the sand off my feet before putting my shoes back on. 

As a pale adult I go to the beach maybe twice a year. I lube up with 90 SPF and marinate

in the hotel room for an hour.  I hang out with the gang for ten minutes or so before taking

a dip in the ocean and heading back to the room.  Anything more and I'm living dangerously.

 

That's me in the sexy black socks and that is my neice.  This year after my traditional
shark safe waist deep wade in the ocean I heard a small voice call out as I began to
walk back to the room.  It was my neice.  She wanted me to come back and play.

My brother put up an umbrella and I took refuge in the shade it provided.
Then came the sand.  My neice poured handfuls of it on the blanket, rubbed it
in my hair and fed me sandy Cheerios; smiling, hooting and clapping in delight.
And I enjoyed every minute of it as much as she did, sand and all. 
Immersion therapy conducted by a one year old.