The Joy of Sled

The West Nashville street so perfectly inclined for Radio Flyers must remain anonymous for its own safety. It lies deep within a densely populated area, protected only by its geography of steep hills and winding streets. Those neighbors didn't argue when we joined the lines 0f kids and adults zooming down, so the least I can do is preserve their secret. 

Of course, this is Nashville, hit with a storm it only encounters once every five to seven years. They won't be bothered that often. But I don't want legions of Vanderbilt students like the ones dragging sleds with an SUV descending upon it. Those DBs would completely ruin the experience. 

Working on deadline (there was no snowstorm in Texas) I had to wait for a mostly uneventful commute home Friday (most had fled for home hours earlier). Two inches on the ground had turned Nashville into a post-apocalyptic war zone, with cars abandoned wherever they stalled even in the middle of West End. People with SUVs drove like they clear roads, but most Nashvillians gave the storm the healthy respect and stuck to 20 mph.  

I bunkered down for the night, only leaving for a 2-mile roundtrip walk to Kroger just to stretch my legs and stave off cabin fever. 

For Saturday, it was time to let loose all that bottled energy on a sledding hill. Wade and Kim were ready due to a fluke; they bough tire chains for Kim's Mini Cooper up near Beech Mountain in North Carolina. So the unplowed streets were not a big deal. 

I must mention the road conditions Saturday afternoon. While the major city streets were fine, the interstates looked a total mess. Some places it narrowed to a single navigable line (of four total lanes) and the plows were somehow averse to touch the exit and entrance ramps. It became harder to travel faster than idle speed in some places. As such, most ramps were littered with trapped vehicles. It's hard not to suspect some underhanded arrangement with the towing companies. 

But back to the important means of travel. Six years had passed since I last went sledding, when Diana and I spent a chilly afternoon on the slopes of Sharon Wood Metro Park's huge hill. I badly needed that sensation of rumbling down a hill and stopping only hurtled into a snow bank. 

After we collected the an available Radio Flyer from Wade's roommate, the search for a hill began. When the first hill looked too mild - we all had 25 years on its sledders - we began cruising for another. Blocks away, we found a neighborhood that turned a steep street into a 600-foot sledding hill. More than a dozen people trudged up the three-block area that still saw a car every few minutes. 

I brought my trusty lunch tray, but it was too small and the snow not packed down enough to carry me like the Radio Flyer. God, that sled was built for hills like this, with its little steering plank capable of the little adjustments necessary for some road obstacles, like the painful divot above a manhole cover. Wade and Kim rode tandem a few times and did pretty well at it. We tried to fit all three of us, with Wade clinging onto the rear. Halfway down he flew off as one of my gloves pulled off in the chaos. 

If not for the hike back up the hill, I could have gone all day.  The sheer euphoria of shooting down an incline had been lost to me. For the moment, consider it totally regained.