The Rock Wall

Saturday morning I went down to the church house to turn on the heat so it would be warm for services Saturday night. The weather guessers thought the slick stuff would hit about midnight.

Maybe it hit about midnight somewhere or maybe they misspoke when they meant mid-day.

We cancelled church services for the entire weekend. It was Monday afternoon before the driveway cleared so I could get up the hill to the church house. The thermostat-timer had done it’s job.

God is in charge of the weather. If he wanted us there, he would have made the roads drivable.

-Sunday morning, Bella asked Kimball to get outside so Kimball let her go. It was so slick on our north steps that Bella slipped on one of her feet. A couple of minutes later, she had enough of being an Out Cat and was back at the north door asking to get in.

-Monday morning, while still fully iced in, we were watching a Springfield TV station. The two hosts showed a video clip one of the TV reporters had shot at home. The young lady left the TV camera in the house running while she ventured out onto the sidewalk. She was wearing plenty of clothing for padding when she hit the ground almost instantly. The two hosts said they showed it to give viewers a laugh.

Kimball and I didn’t laugh. We knew what we were facing and I don’t like watching people get hurt.

Kimball had enough protected concrete that she made it to her car without slipping.

I made it out of the carport onto sheet ice as I headed to my pickup. I thought I would go north of it to a flat looking place when turn and approach my pickup. I was just inching along when my left foot slipped a little. I was suddenly flat of my back on the ice. Afraid to try to stand up, I crawled on hands and knees to the edge of the patio so I could grasp the concrete. I made the commitment to try to stand up and got it the first time. Then I stayed close to my pickup that offered almost no handholds. I was glad to grab onto the rear view mirror and the door handle.

I made sure I latched onto the steering wheel as I slowly pulled myself onto the seat.

I backed about a hundred yards to the boathouse where I had level ground to turn around.

My trip to town was uneventful considering what it could have been. Didn’t slip a wheel.

I haven’t always been intimidated by icy conditions. When I was a fairly small kid, it came an ice storm on top of snow. Mom and Dad took me and my sled into the pasture southeast of the house. There was no readily apparent danger so they had me lay down and stretch out head first on my red sled grasping the steering handles and gave me a slight shove.

It was all downhill from there. I remember the hard sound of the runners on the ice as the sled gained speed. At the bottom of that slight incline maybe 250 or 300 yards from where I started was an east-west fence at the north edge of the pasture.

Mom and Dad were horrified but had no way to get the sled stopped.  Fortunately, it was a three-wire fence with just enough clearance for me to duck my head as I hurtled under the fence. The incline beyond the fence brought me to a stop.

I had a short career as a bobsled racer. KL