Finding fun in the snow
Re-living childhood experiences of snow machines and sleds with my family.
When I was a boy, my uncle Clark pulled sleds full of cousins behind an old Polaris snowmobile (no carbides on skis, tread worn smooth, and the cowling off to aid the constant restarts). He pulled our beat up sleds down the winding trails in a park along the Rum River west of Cambridge, Minnesota -- or he took it for a carbon-clearing sprint on the plowed runway running down the center of Cedar Island Lake near Story Book Lodge Christian Camp.
Uncle Clark did everything he could to start that snowmobile every year. Pulling the spark plug, wrapping and re-wrapping the pull cord ... One time he found it so hard to start that once it was going he never stopped completely and we had to have one party roll off the sled while he idled forward and a new batch jumped on.
It's hard to forget the snap and tug of the rope as the snowmobile took off or the smell of incomplete combustion and the blue smoke in the air. Or the snow whipping past and the hard leans we made to stay on top of the sled or the bone rattling ride as you clung to the rope underneath it!
We came in after hours with frostbit ears and red wrists where the snow had packed in between our choppers (mittens of deer or pig hide outers and wool mitten inserts) and our coat sleeves. I remember our choppers frozen into the shape of a hand clutching a rope.
Tonight I went out with my boys for a pull behind our old 4-wheeler around and round the fields and through the woods and over bumps and on some fast straight-aways. We've been out every night after work the last week and a half.
Tonight I said we'd go for a spin if they peeled and cut five pounds of potatoes for tomorrow's soup. They peeled like champs!