A Child's Christmas in New England by Glenn Wolff

Author:Glenn Wolff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bunker Hill Publishing Inc
Published: 2013-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

UR TREE could be a bit bigger in the new house, as the main room was larger, and we began to decorate outdoors as well as inside. Nothing ostentatious, but a few lights around the front door and on the wrought-iron railings. A Christmas or two went by, and then we kids started to protest with Dad that we should build a fire in the fireplace at Christmastime. But he said no. We hadn’t built one since moving in, and he was convinced that squirrels and birds had built nests of dry-as-bones, highly inflammable materials in the chimney. He was scared to death of another house fire. We didn’t argue. As it was, this probably made it easier for Santa, anyway. And we were warm enough.

One Christmas or another, we were given sleds. Flexible Flyers. We used them so early and often that the fancy red paint on their runners was worn off within a week of Christmas Day. In our new neighborhood, we could stretch the playing field, as they now say during the football games. When the proper confluence of snow and wind and rain and depth-of-base and quality of top-dressing occurred, we could start at the Strojnys’ backyard (two houses north), proceed through the Dahlgrens’ flat, zoom onto the Sullivan Slope and then …

Usually, the ride ended there, as we spun out. But in extraordinary circumstances, it extended. One cold day we brought buckets of water to the street and built an ice bridge across the Berkeley Drive asphalt that had already been plowed by the town. This allowed our racecourse to enter the Reeds’ yard, then the Moseleys’, and then hop onto the recently cut Windsor Place, which was to be part of a new housing development but at the time was just a downhill dirt avenue—covered in snow—that descended all the way to the stream. The full route was nearly half a mile long, though I see it as equal to the Boston Marathon. We would compete belly-down on our sleds, one boy stationed at the Berkeley Drive Crossing to instruct us to bail out if the rare car was coming. We vied ferociously, teeth clenched and eyes ablaze in the cold. If you were gaining on the boy just ahead and could grab his rear runner and spin him off the course, well, of course you would do so. I was a heavy boy—Husky, in my Mighty Mac winter coat—and would often gain speed during a race, nipping up on those who had started with more nimbleness and alacrity. I would do my damage, leaving wreckage in my wake. I did not cackle; I wasn’t that kind of kid. I stayed within myself, smiling only inside, enjoying the thrill of the race, my fingers numb beyond pain (that would come with the thawing), as alive as alive can be. I was an afternoon-into-evening sledder; I remember many a darkening dusk climbing back toward the yellow warmth of home. I remember, too, one triumphant race when I was truly flying.

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