Slippin' and Slidin'

Slippin’ and Slidin’

Up in Michigan, there is a lot of lake effect winter.

Larry no longer lives there. His career takes him and Janice to Cincinnati. They raise their three kids there, and the only reason this is mentioned is that as a rule, there is very little snow in a Cincinnati season, compared to Larry’s old stomping grounds in Southwest Michigan.

At some point back at Michigan, it is time to clean out Larry’s folk’s house. Larry and Janice go up there from Cincy with a small U Haul, thinking not to take much back with them…only some antiques that Larry collected long ago. But when they arrive there, family members want to stuff the van with a variety of things that Larry doesn’t really want, but which he feels some moral responsibility to take anyway.

As they are leaving, Larry’s sister is pushing yet another item on them to haul…his mother’s loom. Larry has tried and failed to be rid of it for 20 years. Now it lives in the yard under cover of plastic sheets which keep peeling away to expose its beautiful but naked wood to the elements, and he constantly pulls them back around the darn thing and fastens them down again.

While they are out in Michigan Janice takes a look around, and sees something in the detached garage. It is a toboggan.

“I never knew that was there”, said Janice in surprise.

To Larry’s knowledge, this is the first time that Janice ever set foot in the detached garage. He sighs. “That old toboggan. We used it twice, if I recall. And now it has been up on the beams for years.

“It’s pretty,” says Janice. “Let’s put that in the U-Haul too!”

“What will we do with that thing?" Larry replies. "It’s not like we get much snow at home, and it don't stay. Even when there IS snow, when do we ever go sledding?

Janice retorts that it may be because there is no sled that they do not go sledding.

“We ain’t never been sledding,” replies Larry, “What makes you think that we are going to start it now?”

But Janet has that glint in her eye that indicates that she has fallen in love with the toboggan or the idea of sledding. “Larry, don’t you remember? We used to take the lunch trays out of the high school dining room, grease ‘em up and slide down that hill behind the Junior High?”

“Well, yup, I guess we did,” Larry scratches his head as if to wake up some sleeping gray cells. “But,” he continued, “That’s a hundred years ago, and was that really sledding anyhow?”

“Of course it was! It was so much fun; I never laughed more, Larry! Let’s take it with us.”

“IF YOU think I’m going pell mell down some mountain on this old toboggan..."

“NOW Listen to me!” Janice is pointing at him, and using that not-to-be-denied tone of voice which strikes terror into the hearts of any son, daughter, grandchild husband, in-law or outlaw who is exposed to that bitter wind. “I see you Larry, gathering up whatever you want off the place! You don’t ask if I want this junk in our house! You gotta’ have it, gotta’ have it! Well I’ll be darned if I’ll be denied the one thing I ever asked for out of this entire trip, and we are taking home that toboggan."

At this point Larry realizes that he has about as much chance of moving the Proctor and Gamble building down to Fountain Square as he does in changing that glacial mind of hers once she gets going, so he grunts and rounds up his Brother-In-Law and they take the toboggan off the beams and put it in the U-Haul. He then returns to find Janice talking to his sister and informs her, “YOUR darn toboggan is in the truck. Are you sure you don’t want me to pack up that old 53 Belair?”

“No, I don’t want the darn car!”

So they say their goodbyes and return with the Loom, some antiques and all the rest, including the toboggan, and for 20 years now the toboggan sits alone and ignored in the basement. Pretty soon there is a big accumulation of stuff blocking it into a corner. Janice thought one time that the old pew cushions being replaced at the Episcopal Church would be nice to have, so they came home. Then the bathroom was remodeled, and the old toilet, sink, vanity etc. are put in there too, and then there is 30 year accumulation of old computers owned by the entire family over the years laid higgledy piggledy on a table and over all, the Christmas stuff in boxes.

But Janice still thinks about the toboggan every year, when one of the fairly rare snows hits Cincinnati and manages to stay on the ground, and then she says “Larry, let’s get out the toboggan and run it over to the park. They have good hills over there.”

“Janice, it’s buried under a mountain of stuff, by the time I get it out, the darn snow will melt!”

Most years, that is pretty factual, and the toboggan is forgotten again for another season. Then one year, Cincinnati had a real winter, and snow came and stayed for a period of weeks. Although Larry pled with Janice, “We’re in our 70s, what will it look like for a couple of old folks...

“Come on, Larry, this might be our last chance. I’m an old lady now, and who knows how much...longer I have…and et cetera. Larry saw through this manipulation, but hell, maybe she was right. It was useless to resist.

Over the next couple days, he digs the thing out. Finally on a Sunday afternoon, the toboggan is ready to go into the van, and away to the hill in the park.

Janice is so excited about this outing! She is laughing and singing as if she just won the Homecoming Queen and getting out the warmest clothes, coats, hats, mufflers, scarves, filling two Thermos containers with hot cider, and a cloth grocery bag of food and the hand warmers. Larry carries it all to the car.

The air is pretty brisk on the day, and cold. Temps are scheduled to fall late in the afternoon and snow and wind expected…but not until later, so off they go on their grand adventure!

It is chilly, but quite sunny and Janice wanted to ride the whole way with windows wide open, to take in the crisp air. They turned off Colerain and went up into the park.

They spend twenty minutes scouting for the location that Janice wants to sled, and she is determined that it should be a good long hill for a good long ride.

“Janice, maybe we ought to start out on a little bunny hill?”

“That ain’t no kind of ride! What are you thinking, we’ll be on the sled 3 seconds and we’ll run out and just have to come back up again.”

So they continue on their way, until they notice quite a good hill, with a gentle slope part way and then a plunge toward the stream below. There they spy several kids with their sleds. “Seems like this is the spot,” says Janice. 

Larry isn’t so sure. “Isn’t that that Jimmy kid over there? He’ll tell the whole neighborhood that we’re acting the fools sliding down the hill.”

“Aw, Jimmy is a good boy. Don’t he mow the yard ev’ry summer, and not even ask for money?”

“Yeah, his Mother makes him do that to keep him out of the house, and last year, he ran down that sapling and broke it!,” snorts Larry. He at least inveigles the promise that they won’t be sledding anywhere close to the urchins.

“BE that as it may, we’re goin’ sleddin’ right here! It’s perfect!” So the sled comes out, the car is locked and they are off to the slope. Janice carries the bag of goodies while Larry manages the 7 foot toboggan, and they lumber up a ridge and are on the side of the hill.

“Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Congers!”

“Oh no, that Jimmy kid sees us and is coming over,” Larry grumbles.

“Come on, just smile, old man, it ain’t so bad.” So Larry plasters a pretty ridiculous smile on his face, as if his muscles froze in the wind while he was grimacing in pain. Janice elbows him in the ribs, and says “Be nice.”

“How you doin', Jimmy?” Larry manages to get out. This bodes better than normal, because often Larry calls the boy “Fatty” to his face.

“Fine, Mr. Congers. Going sledding? Wow that’s a big toboggan. Can I ride it?

“Well, maybe later, Fat—I mean Jimmy,” says the old man. “we’re gonna’ try it out ourselves first.”

Jimmy shows no particular surprise, or concern that a couple of old folk are going to sled. He just says, “Have fun then,” and trots off to join his friends with their sleds. 

Larry tries to remember how you steer the toboggan. Years ago in Michigan, his entire extended family headed to the lake lot to run the sled down the hill and onto the ice. At that time, his elder brother, bringing up the rear, hurt his tailbone when there was too big a gap between the land and the ice. Larry doesn’t remember which way to lean…Is it to the right in order to go left, or to the left to go right, or the other way round, or do you lean in the way you want to go? He only used the toboggan twice in his life. He finally determines that the best way to try to go is straight, and Janice hops on. Larry took hold of the rope from behind, wrapping his legs around Janice, and says, “ Well, here we go,” and pushes with his hands to get it started. Down they go, and snow flies up in their faces, and Janice is laughing the whole time! They don’t make much speed, and don’t quite make it to the river, but Janice was no less thrilled for all that.

“That’s wonderful!” Janice exclaims, as they are sauntering back up the hill, Janice hopping into the footprints of her husband’s boots as they go. “But can’t we go faster?”

“You want to go again?” expostulates Larry, as if he were just asked to recite the Gettysburg address backwards in Chinese.

“Well of course! Do you think I took all the trouble to make the hot cider and things if we were only gonna take one little ride? Besides, I love this!” 

Larry laughed, because he could see she was enjoying herself more probably than he had seen her enjoy herself in a while.

“We could go a little faster, I think,” he says, “If we lean our bodies back. That cuts the wind resistance, and we will go quicker. Anyhow, that’s the idea.”

So this suits Janet, and they get back to the top, and begin the run, leaning back, and it is a quicker run, and they make it further down the hill and slope before the snow caught them, still a little way from the bottom, where the river is. Again, Janice is laughing and clapping like a little kid with a new Christmas toy.

After another run about the same, Janice sees over where the kids have been all day that there are very few left. It is getting colder, and the sun is starting to go down, and wind is picking up, but Janet wants one more run!

“Larry,” she says, “Those kids have sledded there all day and packed that snow down real good. I bet if we got over there, it would be so fast that we can make it easy down to the bottom. What do you say?”

“Well,” said Larry, I waxed it up pretty good, it might go awful fast over there, and there is still a couple kids there. I see Jimmy and one of his pals, I think.

“Oh Pshaw, who cares. Let’s go over and try.”

“Aren’t you gettin’ cold in any way?” asks Larry. He is looking forward about now to some hot cider and getting the fireplace going back home, maybe roasting up some nuts.

“Well, so if I am. We will soon enough have our hot drinks and we’ll be just fine. Just one more ride, Larry.”

Larry remembered from his youth, when he was allowed “just one more" jump off a pier and ended up gashing his ankle on a broken piling from an old dock.

But as the sun is almost setting Larry pulls the toboggan over to the packed snow. They got on that sled, and went S_W_O_O_S_H! “Woah, this is fast,” Larry said to himself, and wondered if he should put out his feet to stop it, but Janice screams and laughs, so he leans back, enjoying the snow and the wind, and the day..but suddenly, Larry was aware that they are awful close to the river. “Where the hell are my reflexes,” he thinks for a nanosecond, and puts out his feet, but too late, the sled is in the river! Janice is screaming as the icy water is seeping quickly into her clothing. He disentangles himself from the toboggan as soon as can be for a man of his age, gets up and pulls her out of the water, carries her out of the creek. She is shivering like crazy and turning blue. Quickly, he takes off his coat and encloses her in it. Jimmy has seen all this, and is down there like a shot. “Hey big man, can you quick get that damn boat out of there?"

Jimmie is puzzled for a second, and then realizes that the boat is the toboggan, now submerged. He has his boots on, so he goes in the icy water and pulls the toboggan onto shore.

“Jimmy, up the hill by where we were are blankets. Bring them down and I’ll meet you halfway up.” Jimmy scuppers for the blankets. Even though the toboggan is wet, she is enmeshed in his coat, and he figures to give her a ride up there. The curved front of the toboggan will at least act as a wind breaker for Janice lying there.

“How are you honey?” He asks.

“C-C-C-Cold, but a little warmer now.”

But the wind is blowing against the old man, and almost sucking the oxygen out of him as he pulls the toboggan and his wife up the slope, and the air gets colder. He stops every so often to catch his breath…after all, he has been up and down these slopes all day, and his heart is not what it once was. Janice shivers.

Fortunately, Jimmy has turned up with the blankets, and quickly the old man snatches them and tucks them in around Janice. Jimmy then helps Larry pull Janice and the sled up to the top of hill, and Larry puts her in the car and turns on the heater. “Here,” he says, as he hands her a thermos of hot cider.

Janice drinks it right down, with satisfaction, and a sigh. He pours her another and a third. Larry jumps in the car, heading off with her and forgetting all about the toboggan. He thinks at first they should go to the hospital, but she is looking much better and her color is more normal than it was, and she says,

“Don’t fuss so. Take me home.”

He takes her home, lights a cheerful fire, she gets out of her ice cold clothes and into warm pajamas and a robe. They drink up more cider and have those sandwiches she had made for the picnic. Now they are cheerful by the fire again, and Janice is laughing about their adventures on the day when there is a knock on the door Larry goes. “Who is there?”

“It’s Jimmy with the sled,” came the reply.

“The toboggan?” says Larry as he opens the door.

There it is, maybe a little worse the wear, but still good to use, and Larry says,

“Son, I want to thank you for getting Janice and me back home. Come on in and have some cider.”

So Jimmy comes in, and they talk and laugh some more, and express endless gratitude to Jimmy. Then when it is time for Jimmy to go, Larry gets up too.

“Larry, why ever for are you getting up?”

“Well, when I let Jimmy out, I thought I’d get the toboggan back in,” says Larry.

“Now just set down a minute,” says Janet. She considers. “Jimmy, are you doin’’ more sleddin’ this winter?”

“Yeah, if the snow keeps up,” says Jimmy.

“Well, would you like to try the toboggan, you and your friends? I think it can seat 7 of you,” says Janice.”

“Sure!” Jimmy almost jumps out of his skin with excitement. “Can I borrow it?”

“No, Jimmy, no…I believe…I believe that you can HAVE it.”

“Wow! Thank you. My friends and I will have so much fun you won’t believe it!!” And after jumping around and saying “wow” a few times more, “Thanks a lot!”

“Now Fat…uh.., Jimmy, come out to the garage with me and bring that toboggan. I have some wax for it that you can have to make it go real fast, and I’ll show you somethin’ about puttin’ it on. Just promise me that you won't run it into the damn river!” 

“Nah, we won't,” says Jimmy, as if the very idea were an insult to his intelligence, and the two get the toboggan and head to the garage.

In ten minutes Larry is back in the house, and looks at his wife as if discovering that she has morphed into a pinball machine. “I thought you wanted that dang toboggan?”

“Oh Larry, I had the borrowin’ of it, for a moment, and now it goes on to where it needs to be. And anyway,” she coos, “Just because there ain’t no toboggan around anymore don’t mean that there can’t be plenty of slippin’ and slidin’ around here”, and she winks.

Larry stands there, looking at her, and then they both burst into a fit of laughter, and Larry almost falls to the floor.

end