The snow started falling early January 26, 1967 and for awhile we thought it would continue till January 26, 1968. When it finally stopped late in the day, Mom and Dad were not pleased. Needless to say, Dad couldn’t get to work at Kraft Foods, and my brother and I were wondering what to do with ourselves since school was closed.
Naturally, being kids, we eventually swam through the three feet of snow a couple of blocks away to our friends’ homes. I went on an exploratory mission with Susie Smidl and Cindy Stewart down to Madison Street to see if any cars were out there. Nope.
An exploratory mission a few days later, however, produced a welcome sight – a snowplow, constructing an Alp against the fence of the car dealer on the southeast corner of Wenonah and Madison. Wow! Time to get the sleds.
My sled was different from my friends’. It was made out of wood in sort of a toboggan-style design and had no runners. That was great, because I could sled on squishier snow than the other kids could. The huge mountain piled up at the car lot got pretty squishy, pretty fast, but not before it seriously damaged the fence that formed its supporting structure.
During the mountain’s approximately five-week life, all the Wenonah Ave. kids climbed it, threw it at each other, and slid down it with or without sleds. On the way to Pioneer Girls at Calvary Memorial Church we stopped for a late-season thrill and arrived looking like we hadn’t bathed in a month.
Of course, once the mound finally went the way of Frosty, we had other ways to get into dirty and dangerous trouble. That was the spring of the Skateboard Club ?.