{"id":1901,"date":"2020-12-30T12:39:20","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T18:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1901"},"modified":"2020-12-30T12:39:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-30T18:39:20","slug":"wintertime-fun-in-vail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1901","title":{"rendered":"Wintertime Fun in Vail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>We\u2019re getting more snow.\u00a0 The previous blast of snow and cold air a few weeks ago, left branches covered with wet, heavy snow, and very slick streets.\u00a0 Once again, this month, I am reminded of living as an adolescent in Vail.\u00a0 No, not Vail, Colorado, but Vail, Iowa.<\/p>\n

Vail, Iowa, sits on a hill, a fairly steep hill.\u00a0 Running through the middle of town, west to east, is a farm-to-market road.\u00a0 A farm-to-market road is a county road that is of a better quality than the streets in a rural town.\u00a0 Its purpose is to connect \u201crural or agricultural areas to market towns.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FTM road dissecting Vail, Iowa, was a smooth road.\u00a0 Unlike the town\u2019s streets that were tarred and covered with pea gravel, the FTM road was tarred and covered with sand.\u00a0 The difference was noticeable, especially in winter.\u00a0 During the winter, a kid\u2019s sled on the FTM road would not suddenly stop because it hit a patch of pea gravel.<\/p>\n

When we were hit with a good-sized snow storm, often the kind that would close schools for at least a day, the county maintenance crew (secondary road maintenance) would head out to clear off the rural gravel roads.\u00a0 The first step in that process was to clean the FTM road.\u00a0 The road grader would not reach down to the road surface since the result would be to tear up the road.\u00a0 So, a decent layer of snow remained on the road.\u00a0 Vehicles coming into town, driving down the slope, helped to pack the snow on the road.\u00a0 Vehicles attempting to leave town would rarely get up the road, would spin and spin, and eventually back down the hill and take an alternate route.\u00a0 The spinning tires would create ice.\u00a0 Back in the day, most people had \u201csnow tires\u201d and thought they could go anywhere.\u00a0 But not up the church hill.<\/p>\n

The church hill was named appropriately because the United Presbyterian Church at the time was the prominent feature at the apex.\u00a0 From there to the bottom of the hill was a three-block long slope that, according to my guess, rivaled a good hill in the heart of San Francisco.\u00a0 I believe the 1st<\/sup> half of the hill was close to a 15% grade, leveling off as you slid into the last block.<\/p>\n

Several kids would run around town trying to find the city maintenance man in order to ask him to post \u201cthe signs\u201d on the road.\u00a0 The signs were nothing more than a sawhorse with a message stating: \u201cCaution! Children sledding.\u201d\u00a0 There were two signs; one at the first intersection down the hill; the other was located in the middle of the intersection after the second block.\u00a0 People in town respected those words of caution, except the Nelson family.<\/p>\n

The Kenny Nelson family lived on the north side of town.\u00a0 I can\u2019t recall one member of that family stopping at the caution signs, and rarely would they slow down.\u00a0 It\u2019s a wonder we all lived without getting hit by a Nelson car.<\/p>\n

The hill was occupied by more than kids that lived in town.\u00a0 I remember the Nepple boys bringing their huge homemade bobsled into town.\u00a0 Other children were brought into town by their parents.\u00a0 An occasional out-of-towner would join the fun, as well.<\/p>\n

A few older country people would attempt to drive up the hill while there were scores of children sledding.\u00a0 They never made it.\u00a0 We were not nice to people who thought they had priority on the road while we were sledding.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t stand in front of them, but as their tires were spinning you can bet some kid would walk up to their window and ask some dumb question, or tell the driver something they already knew.\u00a0 \u201cYour tires are spinning.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re not going very fast.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019ll make it to the top.\u201d\u00a0 Likewise, there were so many kids on the slope it was almost impossible for a car coming from the country to travel down the road.\u00a0 Sledders at the top of the hill refused to yield.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long after I became a teenager that the long, steep hill was sanded and salted after being cleared by the road grader.\u00a0 I am going to have to guess that government bureaucracy became much more important than a bunch of kids having fun and staying out of trouble.\u00a0 After all, this is a FTM road, and farmers needed to bring their goods to town.\u00a0 Bull!\u00a0 Never did they need to get marketable items to any town, particularly on a Saturday or Sunday.\u00a0 I am sure church was a necessary factor for some, and the challenge of making it to town from the farm for the sake of making it to town from the farm was another buckle slot in the bureaucratic belt.\u00a0 It was sad to see the weekend entertainment come to an end.<\/p>\n

Today, I live at the bottom of a hill similar to the one I lived near as a kid.\u00a0 It\u2019s a residential street, and the road is not plowed for at least twenty-four hours after a snowstorm of 2 inches or more.\u00a0 It is cruel entertainment watching the numerous vehicles attempt to get to the top of the hill.\u00a0 Like a kid in Vail, I want to say inane things as I see them back down the hill.\u00a0 Many don\u2019t understand that trying to back into a driveway is the worst thing they can do.\u00a0 The vehicle will slide off the pavement, off the driveway, and get hung up with one wheel over the curb and the other three seeking to find a predicament of their own.<\/p>\n

I no longer own a sled, but if I did, I might want to try sledding down Lynner Drive in Des Moines.\u00a0 Providing, of course, that no family by the name of Nelson lives nearby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re getting more snow.\u00a0 The previous blast of snow and cold air a few weeks ago, left branches covered with wet, heavy snow, and very slick streets.\u00a0 Once again, this month, I am reminded of living as an adolescent in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[803,423],"class_list":["post-1901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sledding","tag-vail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1902,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1901\/revisions\/1902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}