Not Exactly a Case For the Scooby Gang
Posted on March 3, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 17 Comments
There is evidence to suggest the neighbor kids used the backyard hill for sledding, perhaps earlier this very morning.
Which, I would hasten to add, is perfectly fine. They’ve asked before, and we’ve given them blanket permission. It is in fact a lovely little hill to do a bit of sledding on. It would be a shame if it were not used for that purpose at all. Given how cold and cranky this particular winter has been, I’m delighted the kids are getting some fun out of it.
Reblogged this on My Blog.
Hot dog, we got permission! Everyone grab your toboggan…we’re heading for the Scalzi hill!!!
Sledcon 2014!
Did you at least have them fill out a liability waiver to keep on record?
So no post of you in black socks and Bermuda shorts yelling at the kids to get off your hill?
We got FlexiFlyers for Christmas when I was six. There was one snowstorm that year. Then we moved from Ohio to Arizona. I still have the sled fifty years later.
Saruby: You should strap roller-blade wheels on it, so it will work on dry pavement!
There is evidence to suggest the neighbor kids used the backyard hill for sledding, perhaps earlier this very morning.
Are you sure that it wasn’t aliens who came from Ceti Alpha V to find out what a real winter was like? That might be the simpler hypothesis (in the same way that a country-western version of “Purple Rain” might be the better version) and it would explain why the trails mysteriously appear right behind the trees.
Nice! Always glad to see a good hill being used.
@John: You would be the most popular dad in the neighborhood if you rent some equipment and made a bigger hill than that one this summer. That isn’t really much of a hill. It must be really flat where you live.
Guess:
Hills in pictures may appear flatter than they actually are.
*snaps fingers* THAT’s what that picture of you looking all crazy reminded me of! A Scooby villain. I can picture it now…
*wavy lines*
A glowing white humanoid rabbit wearing a pink t-shirt dangles from a tree-branch somewhere in Ohio.
“This isn’t the ghost of some gamma rabbit,” Velma says. “This is,” and she reaches up, grabs the ghost’s long ears and yanks the mask off, revealing…
“MR. SCALZI,” the rest of the Scooby Gang exclaimed with surprise.
“I would have gotten away with it, too. If it wasn’t for you meddling kids,” Scalzi grumbled.
Our front yard has a 60 degree slope, and we let the neighbor kids play on it, summer & winter. Our neighborhood is pretty much a free-range kid zone, in general, which is fun.
The place I went to college had a 100-foot hill between main campus and the main freshman dorms. It is rumored that cafeteria trays would disappear from the student union at the top of the hill and migrate to the one downhill much of the winter, but I certainly wouldn’t know anything about that, or about the concept that you should only do tray-sliding when the snow was new enough to keep most cars from using the road at the bottom.
JohnD – Don’t know about “a country-western version of Purple Rain“, but I did once hear a bluegrass number about the time Jim-Bob Hendrix came around and taught them to play Purple Hay.
Bill: You didn’t go to Reed, perchance? http://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/sallyportal/posts/2014/giant-snowball-batters-reed-dorm.html
::sigh::
This is the kind of thing that just makes me sad. You read the internet postings of this evolved, well-informed man, and then he says something and you realize he’s completely clueless.
There are roles and paradigms that need to be observed, Sir!
As a middle aged man with a big house, and the only nice sledding hill in a neighborhood with kids, it is your role to absolutely forbid all children from sledding on it, in the most crotchety manner possible.
Having ritually asked for permission and being denied it, the children can then ::sneak:: onto your property and avail themselves of the sledding surreptitiously. Sledding is fun. Sneaking onto old man Scalzi’s hill, and sledding while the old fart is distracted is gloriously thrilling.
After they get away with it for a while and it starts to lose its thrill, you are supposed to come running out of the house in your bathrobe and yell at them. They are then entitled by tradition to pelt you with snowballs, and run away, laughing while you bluster and sputter.
That’s the way I remember it as a kid, and now that I have a house and a nice sledding hill, that’s how I deal with the neighborhood kids who want to make use of it.
That’s just the way it’s supposed to be.
Bill Stewart: My brother did workshare at our campus food service, and one winter he reported that they just got fed up and put out a big box with some of the older trays and a big sign: “Use These.”