Editor’s note: This holiday memory of life in Rye in the late 1950s comes from MaryThérèse Braun, who now lives in New Hampshire, but who grew up and lived in Rye for 35 years on Ridgewood Drive.
When I was a child, January was the time of snow. Our bicycles were long stored in the basement and we walked to school. Winter was a time for skiing, skating, sledding, and terrorizing the snowplow man. On those stormy days, when the cold north wind forced the fire station siren to blow in a snow day, all was especially well in my 6-year-old world.
Our neighborhood was tucked away in a small suburban town 25 miles from New York City. It began around a bend where another street ended, so few people knew it existed. The best part of its isolated location, for children who didn’t have to drive in winter and worry about transmissions and tire traction, were the hills. There were three – but only two really counted because the third was too small to qualify as a sled run. We saw it as just one more obstacle to slow down the neighborhood fathers whose race to catch the early train was a weekday morning ritual.
It was hardly a challenge for us, the “little Eskimos” who welcomed the change of season and subsequent snow. The two “real” hills were ours. We claimed them for our kingdom and guarded them from the muffled assault if the infamous snow plow. The owner of the snow removal company often called the president of the neighborhood association to complain that we had chased his man away – again. We were incorrigible. Maybe it had something to do with the cold.
Our kingdom did not have a monarchy. If it did, Colin O’Neill would have been our prince. Colin was the proud owner of “Big Daddy,” an ancient wooden sled that measured somewhere between 10 and 50 feet from end to end. Depending on who was counting, how tall they were, and which uneducated guess they leaned toward. I’m sure age also had something to do with it. Most of us were little ones with little minds and no measuring skills. One thing was certain: We could fit the whole neighborhood and a few extra friends on Colin’s sled. So he reined the un-crowned ruler of the realm. To have snow, a reprieve from school, and a ride on “Big Daddy” down our best hill was to have a glorious day.
If one of us mere mortals standing atop our steepest hill spotted Colin rounding the bend with “Big Daddy” in tow, all associated siblings and pals immediately switched into our exterior nonchalant, “Oh big deal, who cares about that old sled” mode, all the while gleefully jumping inside with anticipation that Colin would be in a sharing mood. He was! Oh joy! Our hearts and stomachs soared.
We were children who loved to be scared. And the embodiment of our fear was “The Tree,” height undetermined, but by all accounts and consensus of opinion, huge. Winter provided us with three whole months of group fear, since the only way to survive a run down our best hill was to make a sharp right, a smooth left, or suffer the consequences of the tree. When Colin appeared, we were forced to face our fear, which was not a minor problem. Most of us were too small to steer with any semblance of accuracy, let alone precision. We had very limited motor skills. We were excellent passengers.
We presented the tree dilemma to our patient parents who assured us, individually and collectively, through the noise of all our pleadings, that they were not cutting down any trees – even though they completely understood that one tree in particular would be the demise of us all. And, yes, they knew it would be a lonely, quiet neighborhood without us.
So the ability to single-handedly steer an immense sled, piled high with rambunctious, screaming children gave one the status of a rock star. Since most of us stood tall at just less than 48 inches, where we sat took on a huge amount of importance. You never heard anyone from the chorus say “dibs the front seat.” My older brother, Tom, and Billy Meldrum usually arranged the seating assignments on “Big Daddy,” saving the unclaimed and never-fought-for space in front for themselves. They were the older brothers; our sworn protectors and brave hearts extraordinaire. But navigating was exhausting, so Kent Rydberg usually volunteered to drive when they were on a break. Colin always gave his seal of approval to Kent’s nomination. When we weren’t sledding, we were “listening up” and deferring to all of Colin’s royal commands and rulings.
Since Kent was Norwegian, everyone thought his ability to withstand the cold would somehow increase his death-defying piloting skills and lessen cerebral cortex injuries should a brush with the tree occur. Wonders never cease. Kent proved to be a good sport and willing navigator, although we did notice he spent the better part of his formative years veering slightly to the left and a bit confused as to time and distance.
We knew we were lucky children. We were grateful to live in a winter wonderland and spent all of our free time sledding and carousing in the crisp New England snow. But with every high there are two lows. That’s where, ranking 3 degrees south of the tree, Barry the Baffled appears in our winter tableau. We naively thought the tree provided enough suspense in our juvenile lives. Then the Bradys moved to our peaceful enclave, and along with Mr. and Mrs. and their six little Bs came Barry, their oh-so-beloved Saint Bernard, who had obviously seen one too many reruns of the original “Heidi” with Shirley Temple and took it all to heart.
Somewhere in the far regions of his seriously malfunctioning canine brain was the notion that his main mission in life was to rescue us from the perils of our folly. Barry’s self-appointed assignment was to pull us off “Big Daddy” and haul us away to safer landscapes. We were way beyond reluctant participants, and sometimes resorted to underhanded tactics to deter the mighty woolly beast. We formed a huddle and devised a plan. We would stage a disaster and convince Barry to save two or three junior sledders from a terrible avalanche. This became his full-time job. The decoys tirelessly rolled and screamed while the sled team flew by in carefree abandon.
If our covert missions were successful, we were guaranteed two rides in a row on “Big Daddy,” and another chance to challenge the tree – unless the big, monstrous, light-flashing snowplow appeared around the bend. At first sighting, we immediately launched “Phase One: Snow Preservation Maneuvers,” which transformed us into a quasi-military unit under strict instructions to cease all activities, charge ahead, and chase our nemesis away. This is what prompted frantic calls to parents to get us off the road and out of the way.
But we were might defenders of our freedom. It was our snow day. The firehouse siren had set us free. We were sworn to protect the snow we claimed for our kingdom, and no one was going to push it away.
