Adventures On Ice

Howdy ya’ll!! Since it’s too cold to go River Shoppin’, I thought I would share a story from my childhood.

When I was 5 I thought my older brothers were the coolest smartest people I knew, now I know, I was wrong. On a weekend trip to “The Estate”  my dad turned us loose as he usually did; after all it’s a 27 acre island, depending on how high the river is, where were we going to go? It’s winter which meant ice, sometimes enough to walk across the river, but not this day. We went to the northern end of “The Estate”. That’s when we saw it, the biggest sheet of ice we’d ever seen in our young lives & it was still attached to the island! In our young minds it was the size of  a football field, in reality is was only about 3 or 4 square feet. There was an almost heavenly light, like a beacon from god calling us to it. Really it was just the sun & I was only following my “extremely intelligent” older brothers; after all they would never lead me astray.

Folks around these parts know we Snodgrass kids think a little differently. Most kids finding a sheet of ice would think ice skating, but not us. Cletus & Jethro found three large sticks & with their guidance showed me just how to beat on the ice. Eventually, we had accomplished our goal. The ice sheet had broken away from “The Estate” & we were now floating down the Susquehanna River on our not so large piece of ice. What freedom, what an adventure! How much fun we were having; more important how were we getting off our slab of ice?!?!

Could this be our slab of ice?

As we floated down past the cabin we began to yell, “Hey Pa!” repeatedly at he top of out lungs. Hearing our cries my Pa looked out the window to see his three children floating by on a piece of ice!! “HOLY SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS!!!” After using the boat to retrieve us from out iceberg, he sat us down in front of the fire & said, “Don’t ever tell Ma!”.

20 years later we’re gathered for a family meal & Pa finally tells Ma about our adventure on ice. Ma then plays the game of irrelevant questions: “What if you wouldn’t have heard them yelling for you?”, “What if they would’ve just floated past the island?” Hello, earth to Ma, we’re sitting right here, we’re okay; of course to anyone who knows us that’s up for debate. Pa tells her “They would’ve stopped eventually! Besides everyone knows who they are, haven’t you seen the way other parents pull their kids inside when they go out to play? They would’ve been return to us.”