Winter in Germany, some years back

In the 1970s, it must have been, those ancient times when there was a West Germany and an East Germany, and it was three or five Deutsche Marks for a U.S. dollar, on the western end of the game… a small village out in the mountains, with a long, winding, fairly quiet road… and a massive snowstorm.

We’d had to pack away a lot of our goods, before going to Germany, in a mysterious thing called “Storage”. So many of the toys and books and beloved belongings of our childhoods.

It would be five years before we came back. Those toys and books and loved things were a strange surprise, bizarre mementos. Five years out of a child’s life is as near to infinite as makes no difference. Very few of those items meant anything at all to us, any more, although I think my Dad probably still keeps them.

But, this is not that story.

This is a memory of a magical snowfall, in a small village nestled in the Taunus mountains. A quiet enough place any day, and brought to a special stillness by the cold silences of the snow. It wasn’t a time any sensible person would go out for a drive. It was ideal for any and all sensible children to go out and play.

There was a long, long road down the mountain, running into the village. For a wonder, it was covered with snow, from top to bottom. Down through the woods, past the fields, by the church and that old house with the timber, straw and mud construction, down on down on down and down to the main street.

Our sleds were among the things we did not pack away.

The German kids had beautiful sleds, tall and narrow, all made of wood, from top to bottom. They brought along old candles to help slick up those wide, wooden runners.

Our American sleds were not so handsomely crafted. They were low, and wide, and had flat, metal runners… and they went like the dickens. Faster, farther. They didn’t actually need waxing, although we gave it a try, anyway.

A cultural exchange was arranged. Some of the German kids could speak quite adequate English– they’d been getting genuine language lessons in school, whereas we’d been learning how to say horse (”pferde”) and bark like a dog (”wau! wau!”). The bolder of them were really pleased to be able to actually use their arcane theoretical knowledge to speak to a real American.

We traded sleds, for a while, and went whizzing down the mountain road together, until the warming sun conspired to take away our sledway, and we were more than half frozen.

Dad and The Toboggan featured, on occasion. It wasn’t as personal or immediate or fast as a sled, but he had a great fondness for it, for some reason. True, the whole family would fit on it. It steered very badly, and we’d end up in unexpected places. We’d make a long (or short) trip down the hill, he’d pull the beast back up again, and we’d run back to the sleds, in the meantime.

As days go, that one was ok.

I wonder what sled tech looks like, today? Not that Phoenix sees a great deal of snow…