Читать книгу Let It Snow. Keeping Canada's Winter Sports Alive онлайн

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Of course, you remember the old slide you had sprinkled and then polished up until it was just about the slipperiest spot in town — and usually right in the path of the greatest pedestrian traffic (and if it had a slant, so much the better, as it was easier to keep going once you got started) and then some old curmudgeon would come along with a can of ashes and spoil the whole shooting-match, with the curt admonition, “What’s the matter with you kids; do you want to break your bloomin’ necks?” And who never paid any attention to your very pertinent rejoinder, “We wasn’t hurtin’ anything; guess they are our own necks, ain’t they?”

Some activities like ice boating eventually did disappear while others like tobogganing became the property only of children. The hardships of the winter of 1912 were quickly forgotten as people got on with life in the big cities of the land.

In a few short years young men would be off to a war from which many would never return, and for survivors those lost years were in many cases made up by finally turning their backs on that residue of memory of seasonal discomfort that their parents, grandparents, and themselves as children had once embraced.