Now that the first of what will be several Winter blasts has settled in, it didn't take me long to remember some of the lesser sights, sounds, and feelings of my childhood while growing up in the Midwest town of Dayton Ohio. A town, tho not as cold as some in Ohio near the Canadian border, it was still far away from the pleasures of a sun-filled Florida city where many Ohioans went at this time of year. These were the sounds and sights that are so unique that it takes that sharp slap in the face when you open the door on that first cold Winter day to let the dog out while still dressed in your sleeping attire to make you remember.
One is the disquiet that occurs in the eerie morning after the first snow fall as your galoshes crunch through the snow leaving the first of what will be many footprints throughout the day. Your mission is to simply get to school on time. No playing, no wasting time, no side tracks. All of that will come soon after the day ends and you can enjoy a coldness that is only appreciated by youth. The crunching, the pounding of the snow echoes through the neighborhood as you walk slowly so as not to fall. But it begins to take on a rhythm of its own. You begin to set the crunch to either a Christmas carol still in your head or maybe even a song you heard on the radio. You speed up, you slow down all the time as the neighbor looks out his window and says to their spouse, "There goes that odd Kender boy acting like he is dancing to music". But in fact you were.
As your journey to school continues you smell the aroma spewing from a neighbor's fireplace of burning oak. But that incense makes you smile not because you think of yourself sitting in a warm living room, but because it reminds you of where you will be on the weekend. You will be lacing up your ice skates while sitting around the outdoor fire at Icelandia, an ice skating rink in Dayton that was the center of most activity both day and night during the cold Winter months. Sharing hot chocolate with a friend or maybe if you were old enough meeting a special friend there as you skated hand in hand in a continuous circle as the music played hoping you would not fall and look foolish.
And then finally you are near your school, and as the nuns usher you into the classroom they remind you not to take your warm clothes off just yet because you will be going to daily Mass next door in Church. So you sit there half-warm, half cold waiting. You'll head to Mass, head back to class and then wait until recess and then, then that feeling that reminds you why freezing temperatures are so painful.
You take up the dare from your best friend, as he challenges to stick your tongue out and touch it to the metal sign post. This challenge is new to you. You've never seen it before nor ever witnessed it. But it will be a challenge you will later throw out to friends, companions and not so close companions as you ready yourself to witness one of the most bizarre scenes for a kid in Winter. Your dang tongue will stick to the post. The other kids will scream with laughter, the teachers will come running and thankfully one of the nuns will pour warm water on your tongue to save you.
Yep, just the sounds and smells and feelings of Winter. A favorite time of the year.
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