Sliding at Pinecrest

Everyone in my neighborhood used to slide down Pinecrest hill; this was before the school erected a fence around its front perimeter, probably prompted by insurance companies to protect the school from lawsuits. Probably for good reason. There were two points of departure, one terribly steep, where one would take off like a bullet but still remain on the school property; the other slightly less steep with a terrace in the middle, less terrifying, but also ending in a phalanx of trees with only two gaps one had to aim for, one barely wide enough for a sled to pass, the other about four sleds wide. We aimed for the larger; it was safer in terms of potential impacts, but it also allowed us to slide clear across Toke Street. Cars would round the bend from Brouseau, wait for a gap in the sliders, then proceed up the hill. We in turn would delay once we saw the car. Common sense prevailed, and adults never complained about our sliding there, as far as we knew.

Maybe common sense didn’t prevail as often as it ought to. We were daredevils then, waxing the bottom of our toboggans, occasionally standing up on the toboggan while sliding downhill (I would never try that on the steep slope: too scary). There were a lot of spills, the occasional ditch if we saw ourselves about to collide with a tree. Sometimes not. Sometimes we just held on and screamed as we closed with those thin gaps in the trees. Impacts were hard. Kids were hurled from their sleds. Tubes bounced off. But their occupants were thrown forward, regardless where that tube might be headed.

One didn’t have to hit those trees to have an accident. Once could be hit while climbing the hill. I was. I was exhausted after so many climbs to the top and not paying as close attention to where I was going as I ought to have. I was staring at my feet with each step. I’d strayed from the dedicated lane we’d formed to regain the hilltop.

“Dave,” someone called out to me. “Look out!”

“What?” I thought, twisting about and trying to see beyond my pulled-low and snow-crusted toque to see who was calling out to me.

It was at that exact moment that a slider took my legs out from under me. My legs flew out and I landed hard enough to take my breath away. Once I could breathe again, I thought it pretty funny. I felt like I’d spun 360 degrees before landing, although I had just been laid flat.

It wasn’t always that dangerous. Sometimes it was just cold. Bitterly cold. Deathly cold. On those days there were few kids on the hill, if any. Dave and I were. And on one day, so was a younger girl and her friend. No one else. Were we cold? No. We were bundled up and climbing the hill repeatedly had toasted us nicely. Steam must have risen from us.

But in the course of the day, the young girl spilled from her slide, losing her boot in the process. It flew off as she tumbled. Try as we might, we couldn’t get that boot back on. Her laces were a tightly frozen knot, and our fingers froze trying, each of us in turn. We finally gave up, jammed her boot on as high up as we could get it, and ran, dragging her home behind us on her sled, her personal team of horses. As we arrived at her house at the lower end of Patricia, if I remember correctly (not far, but it seemed an endless run), her mother must have seen us coming, because she was waiting at the door. She thanked us, we blushed, and we went home.
That was enough sliding for one day.