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It seemed like an excessive amount of effort at first, carting wheelbarrow loads of snow from the shaded rear of the house to the sparsely covered slope in front, but Gin-san wanted his grandson to have a sledding hill, so we toiled all Christmas Day to realize his vision.
When Matthew arrived with his mom and dad the following day, everyone was very excited to buckle him into the toddler-sized sled that his grandparents had purchased for the inaugural run. Everyone was excited, that is, except Matthew. His body became rigid, his face froze into a disgruntled frown, and though he never cried aloud, he emitted a constant moan of discontent.
We all made demonstration runs down the short track, whooping and cheering with each descent, vainly struggling to convince him that this was actually great fun. It didn’t work. As the catatonic child was hustled into the warm confines of the house, we wondered if all our labours had been for naught. We sought to elevate our own low spirits with a few more runs down the gentle hill. Then Matthew’s father, George, suggested that we build a small jump, and I proposed that we extend the track.
A banking turn was added to the bottom, the top end was raised, another jump was included, two more high-speed curves were installed, Christmas lights were embedded along the length of the course, ladders, table tops, and plywood were embedded in the snow to reinforce the track’s internal structure, and three days of dedicated hard work later, the run had quadrupled in height, length, and danger.
Though more attempts were made, Matthew never grew to love the sled run as we did, but after all the time and backbreaking effort we had invested, it was no longer meant for him. The Christmas 2006 front yard toboggan run was ours!
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