Tubing

     When I was a boy… we had magic winters. Snow fell often and heavy, staying for weeks and coloring the world in perfect white blankets. Some snow was wet and heavy, the kind that downed power lines for days. Some snow was dry and powdery, blowing and drifting but never amounting to much. Some snow was actually frost from the river water that diamond-coated the trees along the banks and left the hills brown and wanting.


     But no matter what kind of snow we had, we did what every kid always does with snow. We found a hill and slide down it. What we slid on varied widely. When my mom was a girl, her family would slide down hills on coal shovels or (rather terrifyingly) upturned truck hoods. Imagine a pile of kids clinging to sharp bits of metal while hurtling down a snowy hillside to roll off just before crashing into the creek at the bottom. Amazed the old girl lived to childbearing age, really.


     The first sled I remember had runners and those curious foot pegs which I suppose could be used for steering except they never worked. I remember spending far too much time waxing those cold steel runners while inside all I wanted to do was scream “LET”S GO!!!! The snow will melt!” I believe the wax ploy was a clever way for parents to minimize actual sled time and hopefully stave off the inevitable tear-filled post crash party.


     We weren’t limited to sleds for our snow riding adventures. We would use just about anything for a quick speed fix. Cardboard, trashcan lids, a plastic ice chest lid, even a simple trash bag made for a passable sled. But the greatest thing for winter fun, without a doubt, had to be a tire inner tube.


     I’m not sure who the first person was that decided to blow up an inner tube and slide down a snow covered hill, but I’m sure he is in every kid’s hall of fame. Tubing, as it was called, quickly left the cumbersome old wood and steel sleds in the dust. Lighter, cheaper and with a built in trampoline effect, what could have been better? Well, a longer run, I suppose. Which is exactly what we got when we moved out of the valley and up on the hill.


     Our driveway was over a thousand feet of terror in the summer with a steep slope and precipitous drop offs. Add a foot of snow, and a dream run was suddenly opened up. Of course, you can’t just hop on a tube and make it to the bottom in one go. No no no. The first guy would slide about 30 or 40 feet before the build up of snow overcame gravity, leaving him to hoof it back up while the next brother or neighbor kid had a go with the second tube. He would crash along a bit further and so on, until we had a bobsled run of packed snow that went all the way to the paved road below.


     Using a driveway as a sled run has a few drawbacks. Obviously, the track will be spoiled by the inevitable truck using it for …well, a driveway. Did I mention the precipitous drop offs? Ask your uncle Jim about those. I’m sure he had plenty of time to think on this short coming when he went over the edge and tumbled down a double black diamond slope filled with boulders and scrub pine. Worst of all was that once you dropped down that first pitch and rounded a turn, it was a solo sport. What fun is screaming down a death defying mountain if your buds can’t see you? The cure was a short hike away at the Collins’ house.


     The Collins family had a large open field behind their house that was just the right pitch for tubing. What it lacked in stomach-dropping plunges, it made up for in friends and wide open spaces with plenty of room for multiple tracks and a guaranteed audience. Even daylight was no limit to our fun.


     You see the tire inner tubes had to come from somewhere. That somewhere was a truck tire which also made for a great bonfire out on the hillside. A burning truck tire was perfect for light and heat and greatly extended our play time. I know, I know…not a very environmentally conscious thing to do. But the phrase “environmentally conscious” had yet to be invented, so shush. Of course, someone had to light these fires, and that is where the story draws to a sad close.


     One winter the older boys had gotten their drivers licenses and weren’t around to oversee us younger kids. A perfect snow day was winding down, when someone (name omitted to protect the guilty) decided we should start a tire fire and keep going. The idea is that you pile up a couple of tires, pour on a little diesel fuel (gas is too explosive) then light it while staying low and far from the open fuel. The first two parts I got right. The lighting bit went somewhat wrong.


     I intended to hunker down, extend my arm to the edge of the fuel, then turn my head and flick the lighter. That’s what I intended. What actually happened was that I light the Bic, then slipped in the snow and plunged my fire-wielding fist right into the center of the tires and the half gallon of diesel. I’m sure the ensuing fireball that completely enveloped my body was a thing of cinematic beauty. Imagine the napalm scene in Apocalypse Now. I’m also sure that the blackened and smoky toboggan I was wearing saved my scalp from permanent scarring. However, nothing could be done about the singed eyebrows I would sport for the next few weeks.

     Lesson learned.

The Crab King

                                                 
When I was a boy, I lived with my family in an old farmhouse down in a valley in the middle of nowhere. It was a magik heavy valley, full of strange and wonderful people and places. Us boys never lacked for puddles to jump in, trees to climb or trouble to find.



Just a few feet from our house was a small creek that dominated my early memories. In summer, it never quite dried up and during the heaviest rains was never enough to knock you off your feet. All in all, it was a perfect place for a small kid to play. We would create little pools by building dams with rocks and mud, then chase minnows and crawdads with equal parts enthusiasm and fear. I can still feel the warm sun on my back and see my brothers splashing the clear water as they ran thru the pools, little sparkling drops hanging in the air like diamonds.



Now, with any group of boys, you will need to create space. I was the third of four boys and survived the bullying of two older brothers by being funny and learning to wander away from them. It was on one of those West Virginia walk-abouts, that I first saw the Crab King. I was playing in the creek and was rather proud of myself for having picked up a crawdad of prodigious size (perhaps a shade over an inch), when I saw a hole about two inches round in the lee of a little waterfall.



Being raised in mortal fear of snakes, I assumed it was the mother of all snakes holes and was just about to run screaming to the house, when I saw something stir in the shadows, just inside the hole. Transfixed, I watched a brown-orange claw extend out into the sunlight. A huge, massive terrifying claw which was as large as any whole crawdad I had ever picked up. Slowly the eyestalks extended out, preceding a massive body of lobster size which had a yellow halo around his head. I must have flinched at the sight because this humongous crab darted back into its den and sent me running to the house inside a high-pitched shriek of terror that only a pre-pubescent boy can make.



I tried to tell mom what I had seen, but she was one poor mom with four boys stuck out in the middle on nowhere with our nearest neighbor more than rifle distance away. Since she was one of ten and grew up even more isolated, I gotta think a little crawdad scare barely registered. So I took the prudent course and avoided that part of the creek from then on, until the flood.



Part of the charm of valley living is the inevitable flooding and the flotsam it brings. Our little homestead was just high enough to avoid the normal spring floods, but the really big ones would get up under the house, which happened twice in my memory. This time, the flood brought a most unwelcome guest. No, not the Crab King, but his mortal enemy the Rat Lord.



Rats are awful. They are dirty and vile, given to rude speech and poor hygiene. I recommend avoiding them if at all possible. Even though they will eat just about anything, they have a passion for crab meat. As you can imagine, this tends to upset the crabs, and in particular, the Crab King.



The flood brought a bedraggled rat crew up under our house, which pleased the Crab King not one bit. Before the flood waters had receeded, he was up under our house and taking on the Rat Lord himself in mortal combat. Now I never saw the actual fight, and the Crab King was too modest to give much detail, but it was an epic struggle. The Rat fought with tooth and claw, the Crab defended with shell and his massive pinchers. As I understand it, the fight lasted well into the night and cost the Crab King a claw and some of his carapace, but eventually he prevailed. The rats were driven off and the crawdads were safe for another summer.