On sleds, shovels and saucers, a wild winter's ride

I felt somewhere between stupid and strong when I decided to ride a snow saucer down a steep hill one winter when I was about 12.

Invented the year I was born, it was billed as the Sno-Coaster.

A better name might well have been the Suicide Machine.

To set the snow-globe scene, schools were closed, even the only Catholic one in the county, something of a rarity owing, I suppose, to the grim reality that the town didn’t offer bus service to papists.

Oh, kids could get on one, but they weren’t dropped off on school property, meaning that even after a ride, there could be a long walk.

Such was life in the parochial school universe, a small enclave that stressed self-mortification in the belief that intentionally inflicting pain and suffering on yourself placed you one step closer to God.

Something like that ... it was all wrapped up in an eternal guilt trip.

The point is that snow days weren’t nearly as common for us as they were to the vast public school student population, who seemed to get them all the time, as if there were a quota to fill.

One of my most endearing memories from those schoolboy days is the elation I felt when, after waiting through the list of closures on the town’s radio station, I heard the word “Saint” and right there, right then, I said a quick prayer of thanks, knowing it was a gift.

A few phone calls later, and it was all set up. I’d meet my friends at the country club for an afternoon of sledding, something I usually did at the cemetery, feeling, I guess, more at home in that setting.

But events conspired in such a way that I’d be admitted to the upper-crust layer of elementary school elitism, which was cool.

If you’ve ever seen the movie “Citizen Kane,” then you know all about Rosebud, the iconic sled made famous in the 1941 film.

It belonged to a young Charles Foster Kane and symbolized the vast distance his life had propelled him from its humble beginnings to a career spent straddling the world like a colossus, the very embodiment of success. Near the end, we hear him whisper the word, “Rosebud,” as he breathes his last in Xanadu, his estate.

At this point, I ought to mention that someone paid $14.75 million last summer for the sled, making it the second-most valuable piece of movie memorabilia ever auctioned, trailing only Dorothy’s ruby slippers, which fetched a staggering $32.5 million a year earlier.

But you couldn’t glide down an icy hill in them, now could you?

Film buffs will recall the scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life” in which George Bailey rescues his brother, Harry, when the shovel he rides in place of a sled breaks through the ice, imperiling his life. George rescues him, setting in motion the 1946 Frank Capra classic.

More than 40 years later, audiences were treated to the clumsy Chevy Chase sailing down a hill on a silicone-slathered snow saucer, which he can’t control, sending him into highway traffic.

“Christmas Vacation” isn’t in the same class as the two other gems, but I’ve always admired its well-meaning message of goodwill, and who doesn’t enjoy seeing a squirrel running loose in a house?

So there’s a sled, a shovel and a saucer: my fate rode with the latter.

Exquisitely simple in its design, the Sno-Coaster resembled an upside-down flying saucer or, for those of you with a more culinary imagination, perhaps a flattened, dented Chinese wok.

It had handles on either side, usually made of durable leather, and the aluminum disc’s sleek design spoke of space-age, daredevil fun.

Of course, I’d never ridden one before, so on the afternoon of that rare snow day, I had no idea how, well, dangerous they could be.

All I knew was that if my friends were taking the ride, so would I.

Peer pressure is a funny thing, especially for boys just shy of their teenage years. They want to fit in, to go along with the crowd, not to be the guy who hides behind his mother’s apron strings.

And whose Mom didn’t, at one point in their sons' young lives, say something like, “I suppose if Johnny jumped off a bridge, so would you,” a declaration that wasn’t so much a question as an indictment.

Confronted with that accusation, the one — the only — thing you could never say was, “Ah, Mom, you just don’t understand.”

That was a ticket to having your mouth washed out with soap.

As the Fifth Commandment instructs, “Honor thy father and thy mother,” and, for Catholic kids, that was not meant as a suggestion.

Still, when you’re 12 years old, an eighth-grader testing boundaries not only in behavior but the clothing you wear, the music you listen to and the length of your hair, steep hills were meant for careening down, spinning without control, happily defying gravity. You simply worried about the end of the ride when you got there.

Schools were closed the other day, and I made a point of driving past that country club hill that tempted me all those years ago, and I saw not a single kid: no sleds, no saucers, not even a shovel, just a snowy, icy incline waiting for someone to experience its rewards.

Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to join him on his Facebook page, where snow days now usually mean staying inside.