The Grapevine: Making Snow Day Memories
By Rosalyn Queen on January 26, 2016 from The Grapevine
Do you remember the month of December when we were having all that spring like weather? We were all hoping that we would have a white Christmas, but it did not happen. I hope we were not all naive enough to think that we would get on without any snow.
Well, this weekend we learned that we are not in charge and the snow did come. I was really shocked to see it come in such great quantity. But if everyone was safe it really did us good to stay in side and just lookout the windows while it piled up. As I sat in my TV room in front of the fireplace with the curtains open, I realized just how beautiful the snow is and what a peaceful scene it makes. The world looks so pristine and pure all covered in white. 
The weekend restored a peaceful calm to us. While I watched the snow pile up, my memory slipped back to East View when I was a kid and the minute the snow came we all were ready to do some sled riding. The best place in the neighborhood was the hill beside my home, which we all referred to as Swick's Hill. Believe me. If you have never been to East View you cannot appreciate the size of this hill and the thrill to come down it on a sled. The challenge was that at the bottom of the hill was a railroad track and you had to know how to maneuver the sled in the turn to keep from going over the track down into the sawmill.
Not everyone had sleds so we learned how to come down the hill with two or three on the sled, sometimes sitting up and sometimes lying down on top of each other. The first person in front or on the bottom was kind of the pilot and guided us safely down the hill. At the bottom of the hill we always had a bon fire going made out of a couple of old tires donated to us by a local neighbor. What took a couple of minutes to come down took at least fifteen minutes to trudge back up the hill pulling our sled and getting ready for the next ride. What wonderful memories we made. Any kid who grew up in East View will immediately light up when you mention sled riding down Swick's Hill.
Another great memory was our mothers making ice cream out of the snow. We would not dare do this now as we do not know what might be in the snow. My mother would take a large kettle out and find an undisturbed piece of ground with snow that no animal had been near and scrape the top off and fill her kettle with the pure white snow. When she got back to the house she would mix can milk and sugar in the snow beating it very hard and then if she had a jar of blackberries that she had canned that fall she would add them to the mixture and we thought we were eating the best treat ever. Ruby Kirtner Oldaker and I talked about this and her mother made the same treat for her and her brothers.
You know these are the memories we will hold forever in our hearts. Now the sledding has turned to skiing and snowboarding and the ice cream treats are a trip to local ice cream parlor. If you happen to be a family that does not have a lot of extra cash then you will miss out on these winter activities. And I guess if you do go, you can still make memories, but it just does not seem the same to me. Every time I visit my sister at our old home place in East View, I look up that hill and am immediately filled with a lot of good memories. I just wonder if I had one more chance if I would have the nerve to come down that hill on a sled.
You know I reminisce a lot more now that I'm getting older. Is that good or bad? I hope you do not mind me sharing these memories with you as I am sure a lot of you have the same memories. I hope that recalling mine will make you think about what you did when you were younger.
Over the last couple of weeks, I think I have just about eaten every kind of soup possible. On Sunday I just wanted something different. So I made us a couple of hoagies with fresh fried peppers. My son Mike came over and joined us for lunch and it was great. But I still have soup in the refrigerator and will continue eating it this week.
This is a bad week for me as I had chemo on Wednesday and it takes a while to recover, so it was not much of an effort for me to stay in. The inevitable happened, I caught a cold but I am hoping I will be better soon.
The first of February there will be several things going on at the Progressive Women's Association. A board meeting on February 10, a Mardi Gras celebration and Vendor show on February 5 and the Black Heritage Celebration on February 19. Call (304) 624-6881 for more information.
Keep warm, keep in touch and until next week "Now You Have Heard It through the Grapevine."
.jpg)
