Winter: Bundle Up and Tunnel In

Across the Fence #323

We’re only into the second half of January, and winter has already worn out its welcome. The snow, ice, bone-chilling cold, and slippery roads, can head south any day now.

It looks like our winter weather even got sick of staying in the north this year and took a trip south. They’ve had a real taste of winter down there. The snowbirds who fly the coop each winter, and abandon us in the Frozen Tundra, couldn’t hide from Old Man Winter this year.

I guess all the drifting that takes place around our house, makes the winter seem even worse. We’re located on a high point where the wind gets a good run at us from every direction and deposits big drifts all around the house and driveway. If I were a kid again, I’d love those big piles of snow and look at them as great places to dig snow caves and tunnels. I’d grab a shovel and get to work. But at my age, digging a snow cave, for any reason other than to use as a survival shelter, would make our neighbors and friends think I should be committed to a facility with padded walls.

I remember some of the wonderful snow caves and tunnels we dug at Smith School. We spent hours getting cold and wet as we built them. We never worried about snow collapsing on us. When you’re young you don’t think about the dangers involved in an activity. If they collapsed we simply turned the caves into snow forts and the tunnels into connecting trenches to use during our snowball fights.

We usually chose up sides for our armies. It seems like we spent days erecting elaborate forts, complete with gun ports to peek out of. Those holes didn’t do us much good because we had snowballs, not guns, and it was impossible to throw a snowball out through our gun ports from the inside. The only way to fire a snowball was to stick your head above the walls of the fort and expose yourself to a barrage of incoming fire.

The problem was, those gun ports were just big enough for an incoming snowball to smash through. If someone was extremely lucky with a throw, they might hit someone in the face as they looked through the hole. The thrower would always claim to have aimed at the hole, but none of us were expert marksmen of that caliber, and any hits were pure luck.

Before our battles began, we’d make and stockpile a large quantity of snowballs. You didn’t want to run out of ammunition in the middle of a fight if the other side charged your fort. If you had enough snowballs you could usually stop the charge and force them to retreat back to their fort.

Some years when the drifts were especially deep, we’d dig a tunnel from inside our fort and try to exit some place behind the opposing fort. We made snowballs and fortified our fort with the snow we scooped out of the tunnel. When recess was over, we’d cover the entrance of our tunnel, so the other side couldn’t find it. I don’t think we ever completed one of those tunnels. They usually caved in before we got very far.

If we had spent half the time and effort on our studies as we did building snow forts and digging tunnels, we’d have all been Rhodes scholars. On second thought, maybe that’s how we had a couple high school Valedictorians come out of our school. It must have been the work ethic they learned building snow caves and tunnels. I think we had more fun building tunnels and forts than having snowball fights when they were finished.

The unfortunate thing about snowball fights, like any fight, someone usually gets hurt. Those stockpiles of snowballs often became ice balls by the time we got around to using them. I was “wounded” one time when I took a direct hit from an ice ball, squarely in the groin. I rolled in the snow in the fetal position, in total agony, holding a part of my anatomy that shall go unmentioned, as my life passed before my eyes. I think that incident kept my voice from getting deeper for at least a couple years. The pain seemed to last that long too. I never did find out who threw that snowball.

Despite the pain, wet clothes, and frozen cheeks and fingers, that usually accompanied playing in the snow, it never seemed to deter or bother us. I guess winter is really meant for kids to have fun in. As we get older we tend to lose the playfulness that accompanies snow and winter weather. We get bogged down with the negatives of trying to cope with snow and cold weather, and forget all the positives that were there when we were young.

I haven’t helped make snow forts and tunnels since our kids were young. I think I had as much fun as they did. I’m still tempted to build a snowman when the snow is just right. I may even build another Viking ship like the one I built with the kids in Madison. If you drive out Sherpe Road one day and see a Viking ship made out of snow in our yard, you’ll know I’m ready for that padded cell.