The Snow

The snow has begun.

In an attempt to block out the anxiety, I try to recreate the joy I once felt when tiny white flakes fell embracing the “neighborhood.”

Gleefully, I would watch the city streets slowly transform from dingy gray to pristine white and feel only anticipation and excitement while I waited for the phone to ring.

I knew the minute Tim noticed snow accumulate he would call and ask:

“ How soon will we go sleigh riding?”

Of course he knew we could and not only that, we would.

We also knew that his best friend, Danny, would accompany us and help carry the two Flexible flyers across town to Central Park.

The two young men were not my bosom friends. Rather our recent camaraderie was confined to weather and began when I mentioned owning two Flexible Flyers.

Instantly Tim, tall with black irish curls, and his red haired, laughing friend, Dan, were intrigued. Not with my conversation, but rather with my sleds.

Tim and Danny were not only best friends, they were neighborhood heroes.

Both had recently returned intact from service in “The War to End All Wars.” This was their “gap” year and the two handsome young veterans were savoring their Last Hurrah.

In spring Tim would leave for college and Dan would find employment. Meanwhile the government stipend they received allowed a brief return to the youth not only they, but most young American males, had missed.

I was still in high school and only on the fringe of their social circle. However, I was also the only one in the close knit neighborhood possessing not just one, but two, well preserved sleds. Both had been Christmas gifts from a loving Father.

The two buddies were enchanted with the prospect of sleigh riding in ‘The” Park. I was thrilled to have companions, strong and eager to carry the cherished eqipment,

Although that was our initial link to friendship, it soon became far more during the magical hours we shared the beauty and innocence of a busy city wrapped in the glory of a winter wonderland.

I don’t recall how often we crossed Columbus Circle walking to the hill in Central Park. Perhaps not more than three, possibly four, during that memorable winter;

However, it was when we three bonded forever more.

Life escalated for all of us as the winter faded away only a few months later.

In spring I graduated, and Tim enrolled in college. There he met a beautiful blonde, who eventually became his wife.

Dan didn’t wait that long before becoming both a husband and father.

During the years that followed, when we all returned from homes far from the Park, our paths would cross at a parish reunion. Always both my sleigh riding companions would cross the room to greet me with a kiss and never fail to ask:

“How are the Flexible flyers?”

Now looking out the window, the snow seems to have settled into the winter wonderland I remember. It no longer appears threatening, merely peaceful.

Tim left this world first, long before old age claimed him or the black curls turned white.

And though I now watch the snow in the midwest far from Central Park, Dan has never frgotten and I believe I hear the phone ringing now.