We had a snow last week. It wasn’t much of a snow, at least by West Virginia standards, but it was enough to close the schools and send kids outdoors to sleigh ride. Watching the dozen or so children sleigh riding behind my house brought back some great memories.
Our back yard, the school yard actually, has a gentle hill. It drops maybe 30 feet over a 25 yards distance, and then kids can coast another 100 feet or so.
Jennings Street in Beckley WV was like a downhill slalom at the Olympics. It was a quarter mile from top to bottom with a serious incline. We hauled ass down that hill, and cars be damned.
Our primary mode of transportation was none other than a genuine Flexible Flyer sled. Any other sled was an imposter. Those babies would fly. We lubricated the rails with Ivory Soap to reduce friction. We got a running start from a standing position, leaped out and flew down the steep street.
Flexible Flyers were the creation of Samuel Leeds Allen, who also had a farm equipment factory. To keep his workers busy during the off season, he designed the Flexible Flyer. The sleds were slow movers in farm stores, but then Allen talked some department stores into putting the sleds in the toy departments. When kids saw them displayed in the store windows – well, that’s all it took. Way back in 1915, over 120,000 Flexible Flyers were sold including 2,000 in a single day.
These were sturdy pieces of equipment, able to withstand skirmishes with concrete curbs and unmovable trees. A banged-up Flyer was good for several seasons, but then a new one appeared on the Wish List to Santa Clause. A new Flexible Flyer was always at the top of Santa’s list of toys.
Watching the kids behind my house, I had to chuckle. A box turtle would have beat some of them down that hill.
I would have left them in the dust.