East Side "Sledding"

I grew up in New England. I have seen my fair share of snow. The elementary school I attended backed up to a steep double sledding hill that transformed morning recess into a winter wonderland of flying saucers, snow tubes, and colorful plastic toboggans. We wore Moon Boots, snow suits, and Freezy Freakies gloves that changed colors in the cold. We were experts at snow—or snexperts, if you will. We were prepared. 

Flash forward 25 years, and I am in Nashville with my husband and our two little boys. It has been snowing, as predicted, for close to 24 hours, and we are armed with nothing but our ordinary coats and the two second-hand snowsuits I scored at Goodwill.

We have no sleds. No boots. No Freezy Freakies.

Our cheap cotton mittens are no match for The Snowpocalypse, and we are scrounging to make do.

So this is what I get for ridiculing the ineptitude of our local weathermen. For scoffing at school closings. This is my penance for poking fun at the frantic shoppers, filling their carts with bread and milk and a month’s worth of toilet paper.

My family is wearing three layers of pajama bottoms and plastic Kroger bags on their feet. Our sleds are the plastic lid of a storage bin and a flattened cardboard box that once housed an electric chainsaw. Should these prove inadequate we have brought along as backup one cheap plastic raft (inflated by mouth) and two overflow mail boxes from the U.S. Postal Service.

This is what I get.

“Where should we sled?” my husband asked.

“Preferably somewhere where no one will see us,” I answered. “Like on that big sledding hill in our minds.”

“Please,” he said. “You really think we’ll be the only ones?”

“Sending our kids down a hill in a mailbox? Yes. I do.”

I was right about the mailbox (which TOTALLY DOES NOT WORK, by the way. Just ask my three year old’s face.)

But the raft? And the chainsaw box? And the lid?

All standard fare. We fit right in!

When we arrived at Vinny Links driving range in the basin of Shelby Park, a family even more clever than ours was coming down the hill in a large plastic swimming pool. Others wore garbage can lids and baking sheets strapped to their behinds.

East Nashville is nothing if not a creative community.

And our plastic raft? Once it popped?

Was flat-out perfect.