Memories of a Winter Past

While walking home from classes today, I realized something.  I miss sledding.  As odd as that might sound, it’s true.  The days when I was just a kid and the only thing I had to worry about was whether or not I could out-sled my brother.

Now that I’m old(er), it seems like the simple things I did as a child no longer happen.  I told myself I would sled sometime soon.  Only one issue with that, though.  If you haven’t read my previous post, then you might not have known that Western New York has been having a warm winter.  Long story short, I can’t sled as I don’t have snow.  Now, I know I could make snow or travel elsewhere, but that requires more effort than I’m willing to put in.  Thus, I shall wait and, from the looks of it, I might have to wait a while, too.

Seeing as I haven’t gone sledding in what seems like forever and I already told you the sledding story about the mouse in my pants, I’m going to share another sledding story.  Only, this one is far more adorable.

If you’ve ever seen Balto, you know it starts with the main human character – Rosy – getting a sled and musher’s hat.  Well, when I was around that age, I wanted to be a sled dog musher too.  So, for Christmas, I received a similar set of gifts from my parents.  I got a large sled, the dog-to-sled harnessing equipment, and a real “musher” hat.  As you could guess, I was in just as much bliss as Rosy.  Only, unlike Rosy, my sled dog wasn’t very excited about the new gifts.  In fact, she hated them.

But, being the stubborn little kid that I was, I rounded my dog up and brought her out to the hill I mentioned in My Sledding Adventure’s Twist.  At first, she was overjoyed to be roaming free and wild.  Then, I pulled out the harness and gear.  Her brown eyes just looked at me saying, “Are you crazy?”

Apparently I was, as before I knew it, I had her all hooked in.  Eager to try my mushing skills out, I pointed forward and yelled, “Mush!”

…

“Mush!”

…

“Uhhh… go?”

…

Meet with a frozen dog, I stepped out of my sled and walked to the front where my dog was standing.  Now, before you think I have a lazy dog, I should point out that she’s a Yellow Lab named Sara.  So, mushing isn’t really in her nature.  She’s a bird dog, not a sled-puller.

I tried to get her to pull the sled even without me in it and, well, she still just sat there.   She sat there for hours just staring at us until we unhooked her.  Even bribing her with food didn’t work.  Heck, she didn’t even care that I was petting the cat (she really liked to play with the cat).  Nothing worked.  Sara just wouldn’t move her butt!

In the end, there was a lesson to be learned.  We learned that if we didn’t want our dog running a muck, we just had to hook her to the sled.  Sara learned a lesson as well.  When the sled did come out, she headed for the high hills and the trees in the woods.

My Sledding Adventure’s Twist

While I was tearing down my Christmas decorations and setting aside the generic winter ones, I had a memory pop into my head.  It’s quite the story, so I decided I would share it with all of you that stumbled onto this post.  Let me start off by saying, to this day, I still don’t know what happened to it.

With that out of the way, let’s jump into my story….

It was a fine day.  The snow was perfect.  The ideal sledding snow, that is.  And, my brother and I were getting geared up to trek out into the wondrous white world that called our names.  With assistance from our mother, we bound out of the house and into a large snow bank beside the house.  There we were.  Two black blobs just as happy as could be.  But we wanted more.  More, more, more!

Going back into the house, we called forth mother and asked if she would join us on our sledding adventure.  Sure enough, she accepted and was soon wearing her winter gear as well.

While she was dressing, my brother and I journeyed into the garage to find the sleds.  We had several, so we had to get them all because what kid, in their right mind, wasn’t to remember to pull the sled back up the hill.  We decided things would be so much easier if we had multiple sleds to pick from.

Emerging from the garage, we put on our biggest grins and declared a race.  First one to the top of the hill would be the first one down.

Now, before you think this hill was right there, let me explain it was a good seven-minute hike to get to our sledding spot.  I mean, we had the small little rolls, but we wanted to go down the BIG hill.

Panting by the time we got there, my brother and I decided we needed to test out the speed of the sleds.  We each drew up a sled and readied ourselves for the climatic start.  When mom yelled, “Go!” we took off.

Our sleds barreled down the hill.  Faster, faster, faster!  That’s when I hit the bump.  My sled made an immediate veer to the right, which was going to… CLASH ME INTO MY BROTHER?!

Thankfully, be bailed sled before the crash happened.

Needless to say, the sledding lane I went down was ruined and “off limits” for the remainder of our playtime.  Despite being down a designated lane, we still had a blast.  Although, the best part of the sledding was not the actual sledding.  No, no.  It got much better.

While at the top of the hill, I had made a comment about seeing something move.  Seconds later, there was a mouse on my foot.

Yes.  A mouse.  A real, live mouse.

It’s little beady eyes stared into my for a split second.  Before I could even squirm or kick it away, the little bugger decided to… run up my pant leg.  By that point in time, I was screaming, flailing, rolling, and laughing.  Screaming because I just had a mouse run up my snow-pants.  Flailing because there was a mouse in my clothes.  Rolling because… well, I thought it was an effective way to lose the mouse.  And laughing because it was, without a doubt, the funniest thing that could happen while sledding.

So there you have it.  My sledding adventure with a… twist.  Now, like I told you at the beginning, I still have no idea where the mouse went.  None of us saw it leave, not even my mom who was watching the event as it unfolded.  And I didn’t find a squished little critter in my pants either.  Needless to say, it definitely brought a little excitement to my day.  To this day, whenever I think of a mouse, I think of that moment in time.  Okay, I think of a few others, but those mouse stories are for another time (and for when I know my mother isn’t going to be reading this).

Out of curiosity, have any of you encountered a mouse in such a bizarre fashion?  Share your story if you have (as I would love to know that I’m not the only one that had a mouse run up my pants).

See that hill in the distance? That's the sledding spot.