Homage to Childhood

by Mimi Hedl

We’re snowed in, or more like it, iced in. An arctic blast moved across the Midwest and into the east Saturday night and lingered until Monday morning, dropping sleet, ice and snow leaving us with single digit temperatures, some without power and a travel advisory. As I shoveled snow off the deck, ice thickly coating the boards, my mind drifted back to my childhood in Superior, Wisconsin.

 It was a frigid winter day. I was bundled in snow pants, boots, my alpaca winter jacket, mittens and probably a scarf, tied under my chin. We’d sledded all morning and after lunch I headed back across the street to Central Park. It could have been THE Central Park, so huge, limitless, and beautiful it seemed to me. We could find anything we might possibly want in that park, swings, a baseball field, a creek that froze where we ice skated until we were frozen, hills to sled down, countless trees, magical adventures and at the far, far end of the park where it must’ve dissolved into the poorer side of the park, a small trestle where we could look down on the creek. We seldom ventured into this far away area. From a child’s perspective, it portended evil, spoiled by who knows what, always junk down there, but still a place for adventures, that children love. This time, trouble.

I’d played along the edge of the creek that afternoon with a bunch of other kids, horsing around, like we always did. Slowly we made our way further and further down the edge of the creek until it felt almost like time to go home. The light fading, my hands frozen, balling them up inside my mittens to coax the cold out. When we got to the trestle, I went down by the creek while a few boys stood up on the trestle, throwing things onto the ice, laughing and whispering. One of them shouted down to me, “I bet you won’t walk across the creek to the other side!” That seemed like a silly thing to say. We always crossed over in the wide parts of the creek where we skated, it was so narrow here, it would be nothing to cross. So I stood up and walked across. I heard the ice breaking when I was almost to the other side. I also heard the boys running away. I fell in, fell into the cold water, into a goo-like oil and started to cry. I don’t remember anyone there. I don’t remember how I got out of the icy water or how I got home, a couple blocks away. I only remember crying without stopping, somehow getting home, going in the back door where my mother helped me out of my snowy, gooey clothes. Then I was upstairs in the bathtub with hot water pouring in, crying and crying, the hot water coming forever.

It takes a frigid joyless winter day to dislodge a memory like that, one that seldom has come to me in almost seventy years. The next few days on Strawdog were cold, but the sun came out, making the icicles glisten and the world look enchanted. I made dozens of trips to the woodshed, wearing my nanospikes to keep from falling on the ice. Ron called weather like this survival weather and I did feel vulnerable. One false step and who would feed the fire? Everyone felt the same way. While my phone still worked, friends and neighbors called inquiring, “how are you doing?.” It’s encouraging to hear another voice when we feel isolated. Everyone was iced in. Nothing moved.

The birds devoured the suet. Sometimes there were four different birds taking bites out of one suet cake.  I put out another holder with suet so they wouldn’t fight so much. Of course that didn’t really work. The small birds, chickadees, nuthatches, sparrows, cardinals and snowbirds, cooperated but oh my, the jays, the woodpeckers, the mockingbirds, insisted they have the suet to themselves. They kept me entertained as I watched their dramas unfold. The bamboo jungle gym stayed active. Birds darted up and down, swung on the long bamboo string, pushed each other, puffed up their feathers until they looked three times their size.

I had to bring in the squirrel-proofed bird feeder as the ice fell so thickly into the seed, the birds couldn’t reach it. Would an umbrella protect the feeder? I’ll try it and see what crazy results I get. The Head Gardener will give me a rough time with this, but sometimes I purposely do these ‘unique’ things to get her goat.

Inside I’d walk by the rosemary and marjoram, rubbing their leaves. The fragrance buoyed me and the simple beauty of the plants did as well. It’s like having a silent friend in the house, marjoram my favorite.  I carefully took off the skins of my clementines, also fragrant, and strung them with these bamboo pieces to add cheer to the house. I’d brought up potting soil and containers before the storm and sowed the onion seeds, the red Wethersfield and the yellow of Parma. By mid-March the seedlings will be large enough to plant in the garden. Spring, just the word gives me hope.

I re-read some childhood books including John Steinbeck’s THE RED PONY. The watercolors of the horses and the landscape are beautiful and evocative of life on a ranch. I haven’t reread those stories since childhood and was shocked at how much sadness was in the stories.  After dinner and the dishes I’d lie on the sofa, watching the fire and listening to music, reading, not unlike what we did growing up on cold evenings, all of us together, quietly engaged. The fresh, cold air I’d soaked up from my outside chores, insured me a good sleep, other than coming down every three hours to feed the fire, check that the water was still running in the bathroom, flushing the toilet and getting a big glass of water, my alarm clock.

On one of the sunny afternoons I made a snow angel, remembering the one I made for Mom when she was in the retirement community, throwing a snowball up to her window so she’d look down and see me. She laughed and smiled her wonderful smile, turning me into a girl all over again. This time I looked up to imagine seeing the Head Gardener. Oh dear, her scowl and disapproval would make me want to laugh, but I hoped instead, I’d bite my tongue, and say, “Come on, make one!” and watch her stomp away. I needn’t worry. No one was going anywhere.

If you’re ever in a conversation with a group of folks, and one of them, a man in particular, happens to laugh about the time he teased a girl into crossing a creek he knew was filled with oil that was keeping the ice from freezing, you’ll know that he’s talking about me.