SNOW FORT
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The day before the recent snowstorm, coming out of my dentist’s office, I saw something that warmed my heart despite the 10 degree temperature: two kids building a snow fort.
Not watching TV. Not playing video games. Not prowling the Internet, or corresponding with Facebook or MySpace friends, or text messaging, or even calling on a cell phone. Just outdoors playing, as kids did in my day.
More than that, they were displaying classic Yankee ingenuity. If you’ve ever built a snow fort or castle or any kind of enclosure, you know enough not to try it on a 10 degree day. Snow doesn’t pack any better than dry sand under those circumstances.
But the plows that had cleared the previous snowstorm had done a very fine job of packing the parking lot snow into chunks, in the course of pushing it to ridges along the side. From these ridges, the two kids, ages perhaps 11 and 8, were mining snow fort blocks and carrying them to two plastic sleds, which were serving the same purpose stone boats did when their predecessors used winter conditions as an opportunity to slide field rocks to where they built stone walls.
I came over and told them I was impressed. I asked if they would like to have their pictures on the Internet, but they said they didn’t want any pictures, so I didn’t take any. Once again, I assured them that I thought what they were doing was terrific, and I wished them well, and left.
I’ll see what I can get for pictures once I finish what has be done here, which is raking snow off the garage roof. I’m not looking forward to it, at age 61. After starting the job yesterday, I got up this morning feeling like I used to after soccer practice, back in the days when I was Otter Valley’s goalie. But it’s early afternoon, and I’ve started to thaw, and Prairie Home Companion was a lot about getting up and doing what has to be done.
Of course I might find the kids there again, taking advantage of the even bigger chunks this storm must have produced.
By the way, both the kids were black.
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