SLIDING AND SLIPPING
By Ernie Walsh
About mid-January, 1952, we had received quite a bit of snow in Merasheen, and it was much too deep for my rocket-racer or store bought coaster sled that my Godfather, Uncle Vic Mulrooney, had given me for Christmas. In fact, my older brother's old barrel-stave slide was digging in a lot and not riding over the snow. I had been asking my father, Pop, if he could make me a new slide, but his reply so far had been, "All my barrels are in use, and I don't have an old one that I could break up to make you a slide." The next Saturday, I was turning the grinding stone for about an hour and my arms were really tired as Pop sharpened his axe and other carpenter tools, when he said to me, “I've found an old empty pork barrel, so after dinner I think we'll make you that new slide."
After lunch, he began construction by first knocking the iron hoops off and breaking apart the old pork barrel and picking out the five widest barrel stoves. With his sharp axe, Pop chopped the curved edge off the staves so that they would fit straight and snug against each other. The tops of both ends of each stave he chopped flat for nailing onto the front and rear end of the slide. The ends were made from two pieces of wood about three inches thick, six inches high and two feet long, cut on an angle on the bottoms so the ends would be sloped to keep the slide from digging into the snow, with a one inch wide and deep piece sawn from the top outside corners into which were nailed wooden rails about the size of broom handles. A short piece of rope was tied to the front rails for towing my slide and she was finished.
It was late in the evening, but I had time to make a few runs in our meadow by the house. She wasn't too slick, but I knew she would become faster the more I used her and wore the staves down to smooth wood. That night I got to keep her inside the porch. My brother, Ron, told me that my brothers John and Denis used to keep their slides upstairs under their bed, but only sometimes, I suppose.
Well, the snow kept snowing, and we had plenty of fun sliding on the Big Hill and in our big meadow, usually after school until supper time. Thursday, we received a lot of freezing rain and glitter and looking up at the Big Hill from the school house, it looked like a sheet of ice. About a dozen of our classmates decided we should take our slides to school the next day and go right to the top of the Big Hill and see how far we would come sliding down. Conditions during the week allowed us to have <1 good run when the snow paths were packed down, but only on about half the hill, and many would have their slides digging in at the bottom or slide only half way across the marsh by Micky Cochrane's and across from Mr. Martin Connors’ picket fence.
Next morning, Freddy came by our house with his slide, and I took mine in tow, and we headed off to school on Soldier's Point. At 10:45 a.m., we were let out for fifteen minute recess. To our disappointment, no one else brought their slides, so Edward Hennessey came with Freddy, and Vince Pomroy came with me for the ride. We didn't have much time, so off we ran. The climb up to the top of the Big Hill was hard and slippery. Freddy and Edward went down the hill first pretty swiftly and got right to the bottom, but they hit a rut and the slide dug into the snow and stopped. Vince and I were sitting in my slide, holding her back with our heels dug in the snow, waiting our turn and saw what happened. We pushed off and came down the Big Hill faster than we had ever come before, bumping and hoping we wouldn't dig in. Well, we didn't, and we quickly passed by where Freddy and Edward were standing watching us. The marsh at the bottom of the hill was a sheet of ice, and our slide was going across it spinning around and around, as we couldn't steer or control her. We saw Mr. Martin Connors‘ picket fence coming at us, and we both tried to roll out of the slide but on opposite sides and got tangled up in each other and didn't get out of the slide. The slide, with us inside, hit the picket fence, slicing off some pickets, and my right ankle took the brunt of the impact.
The boys helped me limp home, and I spent the next two weeks on the couch in the kitchen with my ankle swollen up and black and blue. The M.V. Lady Anderson came to Merasheen the next week and Pop took me in our skiff, The Sheena, up to the Fishplant Wharf to see the doctor on board. The doctor put an elastic bandage on my ankle. My chums made sure I got all the assigned school work. Besides hurting my ankle, the other thing I remember hurting from, or being disappointed by, was that the rain and glitter conditions had left Roache‘s Pond and other level places perfect for ice skating and l hockey for the next two weeks or more!