[CarolSells]

Okay, this thread has made me a bit nostalgic. As I've mentioned before I grew up in Cincinnati and have some fond and not so fond snow memories!

Good

1) Sled riding. My dad made us a wooden sled that had runners that were about 1 1/2" wide. It out ran all of the store bought ones with the narrow steel blades which eventually dug into the ground and stopped the sled dead.

2) Mittens and gloves. Most kids had a stay-at-home mom in the old days. When our mittens got soggy mom would meet us at the door and exchange them for a dry pair. Wet ones went on the on floor "register" to be dried. When you were finally called in, you could stand on said registers to warm your tooties!

3) Snowmen and forts. We lived across the street from a small expanse of land (seemed huge in those days) which probably equaled two to three building lots. Sloped down so it was great for sledding. Bottom was flat and the neighborhood boys "teamed up" and built elaborate forts from which great snowball fights were waged! Mom actually contributed one of dad's old hats to grace your snowman's head. Remember when all dads wore brimmed hats?

4) When I was 8 yrs old we upsized as we had a new baby brother on the way. My older brother who would have been 11 at the time would get up very early and shovel neighbor's walks for oh, I not sure, but probably $.50 - $.75 cents. (Dad wasn't paying so he was up early doing our own). Liabilty issues and all that. LOL).

5) Remember when each classroom had a cloak room? You deposited all of your outer wear including the dreaded "leggings" which I hated. Picture Natalie Wood in "A Miracle on 34th Street". I have a picture of me on Santa's lap wearing the very same coat, hat, muffler. etc. I also spent some time in that cloak room for excessive talking. Picture that, huh? (We also had a kid who would eat other children's lunches while he was "incarcerated" in that room).

6) I later went to college at the Univ. Of Cincinnati. On snow days, all of the plastic trays would disappear from the cafeteria to serve as sleds. Yeah, it was theft but we'll pretend for the purpose of this thread that all were returned.

Not so good:

Frozen locks. I had a hand-me-down '61 Belair which had external door locks and I had to get up early to dump boiling water on the driver's side handle to get it to "unfreeze".

I went to Cincinnati Public Schools. After (what seemed like a hours of school closings) the notice always ended with, " And Cincinnati Public Schools will remain open".

Okay, I rambled enough. Didn't we have great childhoods?