Night Sledding, Hot Chocolate, and C.S. Lewis

The snow flew in a nearly horizontal direction as it fell heavily from the sky. The snowflakes were not big and fluffy. They were tiny, round snow flakes that stung the faces of the children as they braved the elements. The family of five were out in the snow, sledding. The chores were done, and it had been dark for an hour or two. The children liked night sledding because it made it just that much more exciting. On clearer nights, the bright moon overhead illuminated the night sky and reflected off of the snowy ground creating a surprisingly bright atmosphere for sledding. On nights like that, the children would often venture beyond the driveway and down into the lower pasture. There was a steep hill that provided enough momentum for the kids to occasionally ride their sleds all the way to the crick on the other end of the field. This was not one of those nights.

They kept their night sledding confined primarily to the hill in between the house and the faded red bank barn. One single light fixture mounted high on a utility pole illuminated the hill sufficiently for the children to avoid any unforeseen mishaps. However, the piercing darkness around them pushed in on their sledding area providing just enough uncertainty to keep the children guessing. The sleds seemed to move faster in the dark. The lack of visibility caused adrenalin to pump through the veins of the riders as they flew down the short hill and across the frozen driveway. The sleds stopped as they plowed into the snowy windrow on the other side. As the children played, the weather became more and more extreme. 

The pole light suddenly began to flash on and off at regular intervals. All five kids looked towards the light and grabbed their respective sleds. They ran towards the house and leaned their sleds against the north exterior wall before entering the basement through the outside entrance. They deposited their outer layers on their respective hooks and ran up the stairs towards the kitchen. 

They were greeted by a smell that they all recognized as their mother's homemade hot chocolate. Cries of yes! and all right! rang out as the children all took their seats at the table. Even though it wasn't dinner time, the children sat at their regular places purely out of habit. They waited with great anticipation as their mother ladled the hot chocolate from the large silver stock pot into five mismatched mugs. She placed a mug in front of each excited child and put a plate of freshly baked snicker doodles in the center of the table.

“Be careful, kids,” Christa warned. “It's hot. Don't burn your mouths.”

The children approached their respective mugs with equal parts anticipation and apprehension. Caleb, being the oldest, reached for his mug first, firmly grasping the handle with his right hand and testing the side of the mug with his left. He leaned forward and hesitantly placed his lips on the edge of the mug. He slowly tilted the mug towards him and allowed the surface of the steaming liquid to touch his top lip. He gasped slightly as he pulled away. He licked his lip as if running a cost/benefit analysis in his head before trying for another sip.

“It's okay, guys,” he declared as he smacked his lips in satisfaction. “It's really tasty, to.”

The other four children reached for their mugs and began to slowly partake of the steaming elixir. Christa poured herself a cup and leaned against the counter, facing the kitchen table. She sipped from her mug as she watched her children do the same. The youngest two had platinum blond hair that looked all the brighter against their rosy cheeks. The older three also had blond hair, but their blond was darker. Some people referred to that hair color as dirty blond, but Christa preferred to say sandy blond. Her children were all too often dirty enough without the excuse of hair color to use to their advantage. She glanced at the stove clock which read 8:00 and addressed the brood before her.

“As soon as you guys finish your hot chocolate, you should go get your jammies on,” she directed. “Your dad said that he would read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when he got done feeding the cows if you were all ready for bed.”

The children looked up from their nearly empty mugs with joy and excitement written across their faces as clearly as the words on a page from their father's book. They simultaneously picked up their mugs and slurped the remaining beverage before running upstairs to change. They reappeared a few minutes later, each wearing a two piece pajama set that had been hand made by their grandmother. They each grabbed a throw pillow off of the couch and gathered around their fathers dark blue swivel chair. They chatted amongst themselves until they heard the back porch door slammed open by the wind. The farmhouse was about fifteen feet from a small summer house that doubled as Dale's office. The wind tunnel created by the positioning of the two buildings was enough to cause even Dale to loose control of the storm door from time to time.

It took the head of the household a few moments to get settled into his swivel chair, but the time seemed so much longer to the children. Dale propped his feet up on an improvised ottoman and took a sip from a small, blue plastic cup. 

“So,” he said with mock confusion. “What are you guys doing here? Is there something you need from me?”

The kids looked from one to another in confusion and disappointment. 

“Mom said you were going to read to us tonight,” Caleb ventured on behalf of his younger siblings.

“Oh really?” his father questioned. “Well, the only reason that she would say such a thing as that is because I am going to read to you kids tonight.”

A collective sigh of relief sounded out from the group on the floor as Dale reached for a small, paperback volume of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A folder that held several eight and a half by eleven inch pages was tucked in between the pages of the book. He opened the book and the folder and pulled a piece of paper out of the folder. He handed the paper to Caleb and began to read. The children all pressed in to look at the page in their oldest brother's hands. It was an illustration that had been copied out of the book, enlarged, and carefully colored with colored pencils. There was a page just like this one for every chapter in the book.

After a few paragraphs, the kids all settled into their listening positions as Caleb handed the page back to the reader. They listened intently to the story even though they had all heard it before. There was something really special to the children about listening to their father's calm, tenor voice read the magical words of C. S. Lewis. The story held everyone's attention, not only because it was a great story, but also because their father was a good story teller, and the children didn't get to see that side of their father very often. When they did, they cherished the moment.

Dale read for about thirty minutes until he glanced at the clock on the wall by the kitchen doorway. He finished out the chapter and closed the book.

“Okay, kids,” he addressed his children as he placed the book back in it's spot. “It's time for you all to go to bed.”

The children didn't argue. In fact, it could be said that they agreed with their father, though not with their words as much as their yawns. They each picked up their pillows and returned them to the couch. They walked over to their mother, who had been listening to the story from her spot on the sofa. She leaned forward and kissed each child good night and received five kisses on her cheek in return. Dale and Christa smiled at each other as they watched their children disappear one by one up the stairs until the door closed behind them.

Dual Sled Experiment

Christa stood over the spread of paperwork that covered the family's kitchen table. Christa was a public relations representative for a chiropractic office in Carrollton and did all of her preparation work for her publicity workshops from the family home. The sound of the slamming back porch door pulled her attention away from the task at hand. She looked up as her youngest daughter walked in through the wooden door that separated the mud room from the kitchen. Kerry, now ten years of age, walked through the kitchen and down the basement stairs. She returned a minute or two later without the heavy outer layers of her wardrobe and greeted her mother. 

 “Whatcha doing, Mommy?”

“I'm just getting my stuff together for that workshop I have to do this weekend,” Christa responded cheerily. “Where is your brother at?”

“He's still outside,” Kerry responded. “He wasn't ready to come in yet, so I just left him.”

The children had been outside playing in the snow. The recent strip mining activity had cleared a new hill for their use just west of the farmhouse. The hill was fairly steep but not as steep or as big as the pasture hill they had avoided for several years since the incident with the log pile. It also provided the added convenience of being visible from the window over the kitchen sink, which was convenient for their mother's supervisory instincts. The kids had all gone sledding together, but one by one they had lost interest and gone their separate ways leaving Scott on the hill alone with five different sleds to choose from. Based on the way things looked from the kitchen, Scott didn't seem to mind. He rotated through the five sleds apparently testing them for performance and comfort, and enjoying the solitude and perspective of the snowy hillside. 

Christa stood at the kitchen sink watching her second son for a moment before returning to her work. Scot sat down on a green plastic sled and pushed off at the top of the hill. About halfway down the hill, the sled began to weave side to side until the young man lost control of it completely. The sled turned sideways and flipped, rolling the teenager down the hill until he slid to a stop in the white snow. He laid in the cold bed for a moment with his arms stretched out on both sides of his torso before rolling to his knees, collecting a sled, and making his way back up the hill. 

“What is he doing?” she questioned as he paused for a moment and grabbed a second sled.

“What are you talking about, mom?” Kerry inquired as she pushed one of the dining room chairs over to the counter. She climbed up on the chair and peered out the window next to her mother as she reached for a towel with which to dry the dishes in the drainer.

“Well,” her mother responded. “He's got another sled. What is he going to do with two sleds at once?”

“Maybe he wants to ride them down like skis,” Kerry responded with uncertainty.

“Don't you guys normally just do that with one sled?” Christa inquired of her youngest.

“Um,” Kerry paused. “Yeah, I guess we do.”

With that, the mother and daughter audience just waited to see what Scott had in mind. The teenager reached the top of the hill with both plastic sleds in tow. He staged the first one at the top of the sledding path. He sat on the green sled and picked up the orange sled. He laid down and held the orange sled over top of himself like a lid. Christa covered her mouth as she stifled her laughter of confusion and anticipation. The improvised sled capsule jerkily began it's descent. This run was somewhat similar to the last in that the sled began to swerve and weave as it gained speed. As was apparently expected, the sled flipped. At this moment, Christa and Kerry both realized the purpose of the top half of the sled pod. The teenager lost the green sled as he flipped, but instead of rolling down the hill as he had before, he found himself on the top of the orange sled. His descent continued, nearly uninterrupted. 

The mother/daughter audience burst into laughter as the teenage boy continued his trip down the snowy hill. However, it didn't take them long to realize there was a small flaw in Scott's plan. Now that he was riding what had originally been the top sled of his improvised sled pod, he was riding down the hill on his stomach and was facing the wrong way. Unfortunately for the young experimenter, he was unable to see where the sled was headed. Christa gasped as it dawned on her that her second son was flying directly towards a tire culvert at the bottom of the hill. (A tire culvert is actually made out of old tires that had been cut apart into two sidewalls and one tread. The tread had been tossed and the sidewalls had been stacked in four foot stacks and banded together creating a heavy, rubber tube that could be used as a culvert.)

The sled weaved and wobbled until it dumped it's passenger just before impact. Scott slammed feet first into the rubber culvert. He laid on his back for a moment and stood to his feet. Christa, having come to the conclusion that her son hadn't sustained any serious injury, threw her head back and joined her youngest daughter in full belly laughter. Her laughter only increased when she saw the exaggerated limp that Scott was employing as a sympathy device as he made his way slowly towards the house.

“Oh my goodness!” Christa gasped in between breaths. “That's the funniest thing I've seen in a long time!”

Scott walked into the kitchen in search of sympathy for his supposed injuries and was greeted only with laughter.

“What are you guys laughing about?” he asked, his face twisted by his exaggerated pain.

“We just watched your little stunt with the sleds,” his mother responded as she wiped away tears of laughter. “That was hilarious.”

Scott realized that he wasn't going to find the sympathy that he was looking for, turned on his heel, and limped through the back porch door. He made his way to the crash site and collected all five of the sleds and turned back towards the house.

“Well,” he muttered through his teeth. “Guess I won't be trying that again.”

Ice Skating on Witmer's Lake

The Henning family stood at the edge of Witmer's lake and looked out at the clean, crisp, snow covered surface. It seemed almost a shame to disturb it, but they did anyway. The children and their mother hung back as Dale walked gingerly out over the ice, testing it with his body weight as he walked. He pushed a black snow shovel in front of him to clear the surface of the ice as he walked. He stopped every few feet and bounced on the balls of his feet listening for the telltale noises of cracking ice. Each time he tested the surface, his actions were rewarded with silence and his family breathed a little easier from the relative safety of the shoreline. 

The lake was nestled in a valley just over the hill to the west of the farm. The small lake was surrounded by a number of trees that had been left behind when the surrounding fields had been cleared. The leafless tree branches were coated in crystal clear ice that creaked and cracked in the gentle, winter breeze. Icicles fell from the branches and landed silently in the fluffy snow. Large snowflakes fell lazily from the sky in an apparent attempt to conceal the tell-tall imprints left by the fallen icicles. The sun shone through a break in the clouds and reflected brilliantly off the snow covered hillside and the freshly cleared path across the lake. The family squinted against the brightness of their surroundings until the sun disappeared behind a particularly dense patch of clouds.

“Okay, kids,” Christa instructed as she walked gingerly out onto the ice. “It's time to put on your skates.”

The children followed their mother onto the ice with unconcealable excitement. Each child carried a pair of skates by the laces. Some of the skates were old figure skates that had been found in the attic while others were relatively new hockey skates that had been purchased for the kids who were unable to find a pair from the attic in their sizes. The kids sat down on the ice and slipped their feet out of their rubber barn boots and into their respective skates. They laced them up, and tied them tight as their parents instructed. Caleb was the first one who was ready to go. He pushed himself carefully to his feet, taking time to allow himself to adjust to his added height due to the blade of the skates. He also had to take time to adjust to the new friction dynamic created by the blades' contact to the ice. 

“Wow,” he commented quietly. “This is going to take some getting used to.”

“Yes it will,” Dale responded with a smile. “Try pushing off like this.”

Dale demonstrated for his eldest by turning his right foot at and angle and pushing behind him, allowing himself to glide forward on the other skate. He swung his right foot in front and pushed off with his left, gaining speed as his children watched in awe. Caleb gingerly followed his father's lead and pushed forward. His movements were jerky, and his progress halting, but he carefully made his way towards his father, pleased by his own progress. 

“Hey, look at you,” Christa encouraged from the sidelines. “You're looking good out there.”

Caleb smiled and pushed forward in response to his mother's encouragement. He gingerly turned and headed back to where he started, showing marked improvement in his technique. His younger siblings, having taken comfort in their older brother's success, stood up and began experimenting with their own abilities and techniques. Like new born calves, the children wobbled and stumbled across the ice as they attempted to gain control of their own feet on the ice. They giggled and laughed as they struggled and fell, thoroughly enjoying themselves despite their incompetence in this new experience. 

Their mother and father stood by watching with smiles on their faces and offering tidbits of advise as their children made their ways across the ice. Dale skated across the ice and turned sharply in a sudden stop. Frost flew from the blades of his figure skates across the ice as his children gasped in glee. Immediately, the older boys attempted to copy their father's technique. They pushed off , gaining speed until they were ready to stop. They turned their skates perpendicular to their direction of travel. Instead of stopping as their father had, their bodies simply rotated in and arc over their feet. They landed on their shoulders and slid across the ice as the rest of their family waited on bated breath to see how they had fared in this failed attempt. The two boys rolled on the backs and sat up, testing their bodies for pain. They smiled and pushed themselves to their feet.

“I guess we need to work on that little more,” Caleb chuckled. 

“Yeah,” Scott agreed. “We definitely do.”

“Are you two okay?” their mother asked sympathetically. “That looked like a pretty bad fall.”

“We're fine,” Caleb responded reassuringly. “I might have hurt more if we didn't slide.”

Scott nodded in agreement as he skated towards the other end of the lake. Caleb picked up the shovel and began pushing it through the snow on the uncleared end of the lake as the younger siblings zigzagged across the cleared side. 

“Watch out for sticks and stones sticking up through the ice,” their dad warned. “They'll trip you up pretty good.”

The children took his warning to heart and continued to make their way across the ice. With each pass, they got bolder. They skated on the lake for well over an hour before Dale finally checked his watch and declared that it was time to head back to the house to get ready for the evening milking. The children reluctantly returned to the unofficial boot deposit area and began untying their skates. Their father sat down in the middle of the lake and began doing something that the children found to be both strange and concerning. He began driving the sharp, heel end of his skate blade into the surface of the frozen lake. Chips of ice flew into the air with each blow as the resulting hole grew in both depth and width. 

“What is Dad doing?!” Kelsey exclaimed with deep concern etched across her young forehead. “He's going to break the ice and fall in!”

“No he isn't dear,” Christa reassured her middle child. “The ice is more than thick enough to handle it. Whatever your dad is doing, you can be sure he'll be just fine.”

“If you say so,” Luke interjected. 

The children watched their father until he had created a hole all the way through the six inch slab of ice that covered the lake. He stood up and glided across the lake towards his family as water began seeping from the hole and spread slowly across the surface of the ice. He sat on the edge of the lake and quickly changed into his boots without offering any explanation for his actions.

“Uh, Dad?” Caleb ventured. “Why did you poke a hole in the ice?”

“You see that water that's seeping out of the hole?” the children nodded in unison. “That will spread over the ice and freeze. The new surface will be much smoother than the one we were skating on today. Next time, you'll be able to skate even better because of the smoother ice.”

The children nodded as comments of Oh, I see and that makes sense sounded through the family ranks. The family, having all changed back into their barn boots, tied their skate laces together and turned towards the farmhouse. The boys slung their skates over their shoulders after their father's example. Kerry handed her skates off to her mom as Kelsey swung her's back and forth as she walked. The sun broke through the clouds just as the family crested the hill. They paused and took in the sight before them. The big white farmhouse stood directly below them with gray smoke lazily rolling from the chimney. The big green pine trees offered a contrasting backdrop to the family residence. The sunlight reflected brightly off the aluminum roof of the big, red bank barn as a few Holsteins milled around in the barnyard. Dale sighed and addressed the family.

“Alright, kids. We've got work to do.”

Flying in Bad Weather

Christa heard the back porch door close form her post in the laundry room as she was loading the washer. She looked out one of the laundry room windows and took note of the weather. Snow was falling from the sky at a pretty good rate. She could tell by the angle of decent that the wind was blowing fairly fast as well.

“I wonder who is going out in this weather,” she mused. “I thought the kids were more or less settled in for the afternoon.”

She walked into the kitchen and over to the sink. She leaned on the sink and gazed out to see if she could determine which of her five children was silly enough to be going out in this weather. She wasn't quite prepared for what she saw. The child in question was her fourteen-year-old, second son. He was dressed in his flannel-lined carpenter jeans and his royal blue hooded Carhartt. That was normal. What took her by surprise was the canvas kite he had in tow. The kite was shaped like a biplane and the wings and body were striped like a rainbow. The wingspan was just over three feet and the body of the plane was just as long. This was a fine kite to be sure. The weather just didn't seem like the ideal weather for kite flying. Sledding would be a much more appropriate activity for a day like today. Christa glanced out the back porch storm door and saw the Flexible Flyer Leaning up against the summer house which simply reinforced her confusion.

“I wonder if he's actually going to get that thing in the air,” Christa wondered as she walked back to the kitchen sink. 

 

She looked out through the kitchen window at her son as he stood with his back to the wind and held the kite out in front of him, waiting for a clean takeoff. Sure enough, the snow notwithstanding, the kite slowly pulled away from the teenager as the wings caught air. 

 

“Hmm,” she mused. “Who would have thought that thing would fly in this weather?”

While his mother was wondering what would possess him to try flying a plane in the middle of an Ohio winter, Scott was thoroughly enjoying himself. The hill he was on was his normal kite flying hill. It was directly west of the old farmhouse and had proved to be an excellent place for flying a kite. The hill was completely clear of wind breaking obstructions and the alfalfa stubble that covered the ground provided a fairly mild surface upon which the kite could crash land. And crash land, it did.

Scott, holding the home made, wooden string handle, walked to where his kite had landed. He picked the biplane up and held it in the wind until the pockets in the wings filled with air and the plane tugged on the young man's arm. He let the kite rise slowly into the air, being careful not to let the string out too quickly. He wasn't wearing any gloves and had learned the hard way how warm the string could get if it was allowed to slide in between his fingers too quickly. Besides, the kite didn't like to stay in the air if it got too much slack all at once.

“Mom would probably say That's a good metaphor for what it's like to be a teenager,” Scott muttered to himself with a reluctant smile. “She's probably right.”

The string tightened against the wooden handle as the kite reached it's previous height. Scott let out some more string and glanced at the reel, taking stock of how much line he had left. He had begun with five hundred feet on the string handle. That's why it was home made. The string spool that came with the kite wasn't big enough for the spool of string he had picked up to enhance his kite flying performance. Besides, the plastic handle bent and twisted against the force of the farm hill winds. The wooden handle was holding up just fine, though.

Scott had about two hundred feet of string between him and the kite. Suddenly, the kite took a dramatic dive for the ground. Scott pulled the string with considerable force causing the biplane to recover just in time and rise quickly back into the sky. He gave the string a few more tugs in rapid succession to ensure the kites continued climb through the snowy sky. 

 

“Whew,” Scott sighed in relief. “That was a close one.”

He waited for a few moments before letting out some more string. The rainbow colored biplane grew smaller and smaller as it's leash grew in length. Finally, the last of the line was in the air. Scott examined the wooden handle in his hand with mild curiosity. Yes, he had made it himself so he knew what it looked like more than anyone else, but it wasn't very often that he saw the handle without the string. There was still a little string on the handle, of course. The string was tied to the handle, but Scott always left two or three windings of string just in case his knot wasn't Boy Scout grade. All the same, it always looked a little funny to him. That didn't take away his moment of triumph, however.

“Ha!” he exclaimed as he took stock of the string before him. “Five hundred feet! Oh yeah!”

Scott stood on the hill, surveying his accomplishment with a huge smile on is face. Now that the work was done, it was time for the main event. Though reality had it's advantages, the teenager took every opportunity to escape into the variety provided by his imagination. He looked up at his biplane and imagined that he was the pilot. He grasped the joysticks in the cockpit firmly as the air rushed around his head. Round goggles protected his eyes as his white scarf flapped in the wind. The fleece collar of his leather bomber jacket covered the back of his neck where the scarf missed. He looked out across the sky and saw a black biplane appear in front of the sun.

“Oh no,” Flying Ace Henning muttered under his breath. “The Red Baron!”

Scott often used history to supplement his imaginary adventures. He had learned about the Red Baron from a book that he had about World War One pilots. He had been particularly intrigued by the German Ace pilot who was widely known as the Red Baron. He was so intrigued by this pilot, that he almost broke his rule of always playing the good guy so he could take on the Red Baron's persona in his imaginative endeavors. Almost.

Back in the confines of Scott's imagination, the two planes looped around, preparing to square off against one another. Flying Ace Henning gripped the joystick just a little tighter in anticipation as his forefinger hovered in front of the joystick's trigger. He hated this part of war, but he knew what he had to do. The two planes flew towards each other, each waiting to see who would fire first. The Red
Baron did. Scott's reaction was immediate. The rata-tat-tat of the two machine guns sounded out across the winter sky. The two planes passed by within feet of each other, both unharmed. They both looped around for another pass. 

 

Scott's adventure was interrupted by a shrill whistle that rode on the winter wind. The whistle was a sharp, two note tone that brought the teenager back to reality immediately. The teenager's father often whistled to let his children know they needed to report to wherever the older Henning was at the moment. The distinct noise was easily distinguished from other farm noises and was more discrete than yelling for the children at the top of ones lungs. Scott whistled back, hoping that his father heard. He turned back to his kite just in time to see it nose dive into the snow covered alfalfa stubble.

“Well,” Scott commented to the field around him. “I guess the Baron won this one. Until next time.”

The young man saluted the sky and looked out across the field at his kite and the heaved a heavy sigh at the five hundred feet separating him from his aircraft. He began the arduous task of winding up the string, trying his best to do so quickly. Ten minutes later, he picked up his kite, and headed towards the house. Despite his unfortunate landing, he was quite pleased with himself. Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, he chuckled to himself.

He rushed down the hill, being careful not to loose his footing in the snow. He made it to the house without any embarrassing mishaps and rushed into the back porch. He hung the kite by the handle on a hook before opening the wooden door that lead into the kitchen. He stepped from one rug to another on his way to the basement door, being careful not to allow any snow to fall onto the dark green, linoleum floor. He removed his snowy boots and put them in their place on the shelf and turned towards the kitchen table where he found his whole family, sitting there with varying degrees and amusement on their faces. 

 

“So,” Dale ventured. “Flying a kite today, huh?”

“Why not?” Scott asked, only slightly embarrassed. “The wind out there is perfect for flying a kite.”

“But it's snowing out there,” Caleb challenged his younger brother. “And not just a little. It's really coming down out there.” 

 

“Yes, yes it is,” Scott agreed as he slipped his coat off of his shoulders. “My cost benefit analysis found it to be worth it. I could wait all summer long for wind like that and never get it. Do you know how much string I had up in the air today?” He continued without waiting for an answer. “Five hundred feet! I hardly ever get five hundred feet out.” (It should be noted that Scott was only able to use the term cost benefit analysis because he had read it in a book a few days before and had asked his mother to explain what the term meant.)

Scott took his place on the right end of the cherry bench.

“So , who won today?” Kelsey challenged her older brother with just a hint of mockery. “You or the Red Baron?” 

 

“The Red Baron,” Scott sighed with dejection. “I got distracted by a whistle.” 

 

The whole table erupted in laughter as the family bowed their heads for prayer.