it’s official. winter has begun in mid-missouri. i almost didn’t believe my eyes as i drove to work this morning. what was that lazily dancing across my windshield?

snow?

i almost forgot snow existed. most missouri winters are comprised merely of bone-chilling wind snaps and bleak skies, with a stingy dusting of anemic flakes. it’s been at least a decade since anything deserving the title “snowfall accumulation” has nary meandered through this region.

picture 1982. stringy hair, velcro shoes, and my favorite blue corduroy pants. ahh, those were the days. this was the year of real snow. the skies opened up and dumped around two feet of pure powder on my fair city. my sister and i, celebrating our snow day, spied our tiny city backyard greedily.

carefully sidestepping the brown and yellow yard art from our dog charlie, we exhausted ourselves to near-frostbite digging snow caves and an extensive tunnel system. This lasted briefly until my mother gave into her irrational fears of a cave-in.

this left the swing set. we waded out in waist high snow and took turns having our dad push us as high as we could go, standing on the swings. just at the right moment, we’d let it fly and gracefully belly flop face-first in the snow. good times, good times.

if our dad was feeling really energetic, we’d pack up the stationwagon with our sled and head to the art museum, home of art hill. ahh, not just the site of fine art, but also perched on a steep hill fronted by a pond, sits the st. louis art museum. on any snowy day, art hill is packed with sledders and their accoutrements. best of all, it didn’t matter if you had the top of the line, sledmaster 1000 or the cardboard box leftover from christmas morning; the hill was an equalizer. it did not discriminate: we were all white, black, and blue by the end of the day. and those too careless, or out of control, were fished out of the almost-frozen pond by the small crowd that gathered at its edge just for that purpose.

my sister and i would fight over who would sit in front to “steer” our sled. we would pile on, wrestle for control of our elaborate clothesline steering mechanism, screaming little girl screams of delight while my dad heaved us down the hill. we’d bump and shimmy our way through patches of other sledders coming and going. i’d hold my breath the closer we sped towards the water, cheating death with each second. then we’d trudge our way back up, fight for steering priviledges, then do it all over again until we were beyond feeling our toes and fingers.

the sled we were given was a classic wooden sled from an elderly man who lived up the street from us. you know the type: wood slats, chipped red paint metal rims. my parents still have it in their garage. every winter i promise myself that i’m going to take it down from the rafters and bring it home.

i think this year i’ll make good on that promise.