Random notes

Playing pretend on a winter day

By Rhonda Westfall

This is a good week to play pretend.

Just use your imagination, and together we'll make the snow disappear - I promise.

First off, those drifts that Mother Nature has sculpted into white waves cascading across the countryside are really the warm waters of Lake Michigan in late August - warm and wet and wonderfully blue.

The sun is shining brightly, and children are happily digging with small plastic shovels along the shore, creating castles that gradually melt back into the shoreline with each gentle, lapping wave.

Further down the beach a couple wanders at the water's edge, patrolling for Petoskey stones and occasionally flipping a particularly worthy skipping stone into the sparkling blue water.

A Chocolate Labrador and Golden Retriever bolt ahead of the pair, stopping to sniff at varied scents along the shoreline and accepting the petting strokes of passers-by who admire their friendly dispositions. As you shield your eyes from the brilliant sun that bakes the sand beneath your blanket, a group of sailboats appears on the horizon. The entourage makes its way gracefully across the harbor, its bright sails adding flashes of red, green, and yellow to the already colorful scene. And all the while the warm westerly wind blows in from the water, sighing across the sand and breathing through the tall pine trees that line the top of the dunes.

Feel better?

If a mental picture of summer on the shores of Lake Michigan isn't what it takes for you to break free of last week's snowy weather, please feel free to insert whatever image does help to take you away.

If you're one of "those" people who honesty enjoy this wretched weather, you're probably pleased as punch about the current mid-Michigan scenario - you have my sympathy.

Actually, I really don't mind snow; in fact, I appreciate the beautiful whiteness of it all and enjoy the changing seasons. I just don't understand why we can't have snow (for a week or two), and have it remain 75 degrees.

If there's snow in heaven, I'll bet it's warm at the same time. Age also plays a part, I think, in an individual's change of attitude toward cold and snow. When I was little, I was oblivious to cold - or heat. Playing was all that mattered.

If I was still 10 years old, I would have been outside skating last week - instead of bundled up indoors complaining about the cold wind. Days off from school when we were "snowed- in" meant endless hours of skating on the creek by Marten's Service - or "Howard's shop" as it was called at that time.

Cold was a necessary factor in the equation for ice skating - indoor public rinks were non-existent. You either waited for really cold weather to freeze the edges of the flowing creek, or prayed for an ice storm to create a "rink" in the field.

Of course, rink maintenance was part of the outdoor experience. Shoveling snow and keeping the ice as smooth as possible was an ongoing battle - which Mother Nature always won - but, we did give it our best effort.

Sledding was another cold-weather sport that occupied time on snowy days - or evenings. I remember in particular going sledding one night on a hill behind the barn at Carl and Alice Krumm's house with their children, Ralph, Ruth, Jean, and Robert. I was probably five or six, while the others - including my "much older" brother and sister - weren't too thrilled about having me join in. As always, they were all forced to put with the little tag-along.

I swear, they tried their best to eliminate the prospect of ever having to take me sledding with them again. That hill seemed huge - and very, very fast - to a smallfry like me. Naturally, they put me on a saucer by myself and sent me hurtling down the hill, laughing and cheering while they stood at the top as I thumped toward the bottom, gathering speed and momentum along the way.

Needless to say, I survived, but the picture remains clear in my mind's eye - a treasured memory of fun times in cold and snow. During periods like last week, it's nice to bring memories to life - or play pretend a bit - while we wait for spring to come.

After all, March 20 is still a ways off.