Bullet Hill
We finally received a snow worthy of winter around Valentine’s Day. It still is fairly pathetic compared to what a real winter should have (100+ inches is respectable). I set out to shovel the driveway and my daughters pleaded with me to shovel the entire contents of the driveway onto the already significant pile that had been created by the snowplow during previous snowfalls. They wanted to make a sledding hill. I began to protest and tried to explain to them that it would require a significant effort and would result in a fairly pathetic “hill” for sledding. They were relentless in their pleadings and I finally relented. It took me a couple of hours but I was finally able to transport all of the snow from the driveway onto the pile at the end of the driveway. I must have looked awfully silly to my neighbors as I took one shovel load after another and walked it down the driveway and hurled it up onto the heap when I could have more conveniently tossed it onto the nearest snow bank.
The girls were ecstatic about my creation and promptly christened the monument to my labor - “Bullet Hill”. They spent the better part of the day sledding down it. I watched them for awhile and initially found it ludicrous that they were wasting their time sledding down a “hill” that provided a two second ride at best. Surely, I thought, they must have named it Bullet Hill because it was not much bigger than a bullet. Nevertheless, they spent hours sledding down it and when I got home from work they related the stories to me and my wife over hot chocolate.
This event reminded me of a trip I took about 7 years ago to the farm in New Hampshire where I spent the better part of my childhood. I wanted to show my wife where I grew up. I remember being struck at how much smaller everything seemed. The giant rock that I used to climb on seemed to have been worn down by the passing of time; the tree house I built in the large sugar maple out back seemed nowhere as lofty as I remembered. It occurred to me that my daughters joy in sledding down Bullet Hill was simply a reflection of the gift that all children are blessed with; the ability to infuse simple things with an imagination and magic that most of us adults have lost. It is a pity that as we mature and become responsible we tend to lose that part of us that finds endless amusement sledding down a “hill” that our fathers made by shoveling out one small driveway. It makes me want to go home and build a tree house.
The girls were ecstatic about my creation and promptly christened the monument to my labor - “Bullet Hill”. They spent the better part of the day sledding down it. I watched them for awhile and initially found it ludicrous that they were wasting their time sledding down a “hill” that provided a two second ride at best. Surely, I thought, they must have named it Bullet Hill because it was not much bigger than a bullet. Nevertheless, they spent hours sledding down it and when I got home from work they related the stories to me and my wife over hot chocolate.
This event reminded me of a trip I took about 7 years ago to the farm in New Hampshire where I spent the better part of my childhood. I wanted to show my wife where I grew up. I remember being struck at how much smaller everything seemed. The giant rock that I used to climb on seemed to have been worn down by the passing of time; the tree house I built in the large sugar maple out back seemed nowhere as lofty as I remembered. It occurred to me that my daughters joy in sledding down Bullet Hill was simply a reflection of the gift that all children are blessed with; the ability to infuse simple things with an imagination and magic that most of us adults have lost. It is a pity that as we mature and become responsible we tend to lose that part of us that finds endless amusement sledding down a “hill” that our fathers made by shoveling out one small driveway. It makes me want to go home and build a tree house.