WINTER OLYMPICS PIONEER STYLE

Winter fun is timeless. Despite overwhelming cold there’s hardly a child in cold weather climates who can’t relate stories of their personal winter games. If you were a pioneer child, or even a more modern child, fun in the snow was a way to beat the winter blahs.

THE SKIING EVENT—many tales are told of children who, lacking a proper set of skis, waxed down a pair of barrel stays and took to the snow. These skis were a distinct advantage when drifts were over three feet deep and ice crusted enough to support a child on a pair of skis.

The area surrounding my childhood home is hilly, so skiing was a perfect winter occupation. Somewhere along the way in my father’s younger life, he had acquired a pair of downhill skis. Made from wood with a leather strap as a fastener, the skis were about eight feet long. Really that may be an over estimate, but when your nine or ten anything looks long. Enter the ski run. Due to the hilly land, several spots were optimum for skiing. Let us note here, that we had to be within sight of the house in case one of us became seriously maimed. After the hill was tamped down to make gliding easier, (read that as solid ice) we would take off down the hill dodging yucca plants and barbs as we went. On our favorite run the object was to ski down the hill, lay down backward on the skis to go under the barbed wire fence, stand back up and get stopped before you went off the edge of the ten foot creek embankment. It would have been great to go over that embankment if there hadn’t been a large cottonwood tree at the bottom. For some reason the barbed wire fence didn’t bother my parents, but the tree did. Both of my siblings became competent skiers in adulthood: my enjoyment ended as a teenager.

Perhaps one of the most interesting uses of skis occurred when a local teenager decided to fasten skis to his beloved motorcycle. Disappointed that snow hampered riding the motorcycle in winter, he devised a method of attaching the skis to the motorcycle and was able to continue riding to school all winter.

Next week some thoughts on the pioneer bobsled.