On a clear, cold winter night, we left our warm apartment above the hardware store and ventured out into the parking lot. The nearby A&P supermarket was closed, and the parking lot was empty. There were huge piles of snow around the perimeter, the plows having cleared the lot that day. Marleen and I grabbed some flattened cardboard and clambered up the snow pile, then slid down the man-made hill. The cold fresh air made us glad to be alive, acting like a couple of kids under the starlit sky.

That was in 1966, the year we were married. I have great memories of sledding when I was a kid in College Point, New York, climbing to the top of a hill in a vacant lot, and zooming down on my sled into the street below. Marleen recalls that her dad build a big toboggan for her and her siblings living on the farm in Adair, Iowa. And she had her own sled, the real kind with steel runners that were steerable.

We had children of our own and both of them received the same kind of sled for Christmas. We’d all go to the golf course nearby where there was a great sledding hill that sloped down to the Root River which winds its way through much of Racine County, Wisconsin and empties into Lake Michigan. Marleen’s old sled got a workout every year. One year, I took a running start, belly-flopped onto the sled and raced down the hill, going airborne when I hit a frozen mound, and flipped over landing on my shoulder. It was spectacular! The shoulder required surgery afterward. Marleen’s descents were more sedate. Our daughters, fortunately did not emulate their father.

We would also go ice skating at the same golf course, where they flooded the lower parking lot and turned it into a hockey rink. They served hot chocolate in the snack bar. Simple fun in the refreshing cold air under piercingly blue skies. Except for the time when our younger daughter fell and fractured her arm. Afterwards, she gleefully used her cast to bang on every surface, and of course she took to the ice again.

The children grew up, and now we were grandparents to three kids who lived in the flatlands of Illinois. But each one in turn, came to Wisconsin in the winter, and we made the trip to the golf course. It became a right of passage, that each one would have their first sled-ride seated on Grandma’s old sled with Grandpa behind, teaching them the joy of speeding down the hill on hard-packed snow. Then it was time for the solo ride. The clear blue skies, the sun making the snow sparkle like crystal, the vapor of our breath rising in excitement and laughter, these are sweet memories for me.

The best Marleen and I can do these days is to go out into the yard to build a snowman. The grandchildren are all adults now, and the old sled hangs in the garage, waiting for the next generation.