I have always loved Christmas—but the season in which it falls not so much. Through the years, winter has become my least favorite time, but it was not always so
As a child I loved winter. I don’t remember minding the cold. In snowsuit, hat, gloves and boots, I met those cold, snowy days with childhood glee. Unless I had a good book to read or toys from Christmas that I particularly liked, I preferred to be outside.
The Gurski Farm in Brookfield where I grew up became a wonderland in the months that followed Christmas. There always seemed to be plenty of snow, and the farm offered many places for winter fun. There were fields for making snowballs and snow angels and hills of varying sizes for sledding and tobogganing. Once it was cold enough, there was even a pond for skating.
Though I was enthusiastic about sledding and just running around in the snow, one thing I never mastered was ice skating. To his credit, my dad, Stanley Gurski, tried to teach me, but my feet just would not cooperate. I was not the most agile child, as I remember. Photographs of me at that time always show bandages on my knees so it probably came to no one’s surprise that I could not master skates. My ankles would turn, and I would fall down. After this happened a number of times, my dad finally gave up, and I was content just to slide on the ice without those skates that had been my downfall.
When it snowed, my dad would plow all the driveways plus a path through the orchard from our house to my grandmother’s that I would follow to meet my cousin Helen on school days. Since we lived so close to the Consolidated School (now Center School), we walked to school every day, no matter what the weather. It was an uphill walk to the school and a much easier walk home later in the day.
I don’t remember having snow days, but perhaps we did. I probably don’t remember because it did not create problems in our household for childcare. My mother worked, but my dad was home during the day, as well as my grandmother, so the concern probably never arose.
I loved sledding. My favorite route was from our house, following the plowed path through the orchard, and ending in my grandmother’s back yard. Sometimes several family members would toboggan from the very top of the hill behind our houses. There was a marvelous view from there. The trees were not as tall as they are today, and you could see the steeple of the Congregational Church and the school, the only one in town at that time. Below us was the entire farm with the houses, barns, and other buildings surrounded by snow. It was a glorious sight.
Then we would pile onto the toboggan and down we would go, following the road that ran between the hay fields. I remember one time we made it all the way down to the top of our driveway where the toboggan suddenly came to a stop and flipped over on its side. All of us scrambled off, I had a minor cut on my hand, but no one knew what had happened.
When my cousin Frank was learning to ski, I wanted to learn, too. I think by that time in my life, my parents were convinced that I was not to be trusted on anything but my two feet and perhaps they were in themselves dangerous. My father always said I could trip over a blade of grass, so there was no way he would let me go down a hill on skis. More than skinned knees were something I’m sure he envisioned. Needless to say, I did not learn to ski.
My disenchantment with winter began years later when I had my first job. I loved cars and loved to drive, but not in snow, and that has not changed as I have aged. Now that I’m retired, appointments can be rescheduled, food shopping can wait until the roads are plowed. It’s again time for me to enjoy winter, watching the snow as it falls, seeing its beauty from the warmth of my house and, most of all, not having to drive in it.
