Oh The Games We Played

The first published article for which I received payment was titled "Make a Game of It." The concept had to do with using a more creative approach to teaching. By means of games, creatively crafted, we can sink home insights, ideas and facts in a manner that is both entertaining and engaging.

What brought this to mind was our recent snowstorm that has smothered the Northland. As adults we see these storms as inconvenient at best and troublesome or even dangerous at worst. More than a few older men have had heart attacks while shoveling snow. When we were boys, however, fresh snow meant either making some extra cash shoveling driveways for the neighbors, or just having fun.

There are plenty of games with widespread popularity that young people across the country were familiar with in my day such as Spud,
Kick the Can, Freeze Tag and the like. But I'm willing to guess there are places where a creative kid invented a few new games which, even if not widespread in popularity, were tremendously fun for the kids in that neighborhood. The two I'm thinking of here tonight were of my invention. Based on the buy-in from other kids in my New Jersey neighborhood they were pretty good games.

My family lived in one of the new mid-Sixties housing developments in Bridgewater Township. If you look at the topography of the Eastern United States you'll see the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains begin here in Central New Jersey. Our home abutted the Public Service Grounds where power lines climbed up and over the foothills which would eventually become mountains further west.

As a teen I was big-time into sports and had a subscription to Sports Illustrated. I read an article about a sled dog race in Alaska and the idea of racing through the snow down the side of the mountain seemed really cool to me. Somehow I talked a bunch of the neighbors into the idea and we headed up to Washington Valley Road and huffed our way up the Public Service Grounds. It took about fifteen to twenty minutes or so to climb to the top, and one minute to race back to the bottom, many of us losing control, flying through the air only to land in deep snow. Occasionally someone would lose a boot. Even when we landed on rocks it seemed we were so padded with winter gear that no one ever go hurt. And once at the bottom we'd all look at one another and say, "One more time?" It was a blast.

The second original game we came up with was more psychological in nature. This is the game that came to mind as I blew the driveway and shoveled walkways today. For lack of a better name we'll call it Manhunt.

Manhunt was a game we could only play when there was freshly fallen snow that no one had yet marred. It went like this. One of us would become the hunted. The others became the hunters.

Out of fairness, we always rotated who the hunted would be because this was a game of wits and it was tremendously fun to see if one could outwit one's hunter friends.

Here are the rules as I recall them. The hunted was given a head start of fifteen or twenty minutes, and the rest of us would begin our pursuit. There were boundaries outside which the hunted was not permitted to go, but the area was quite large. The hunted was handicapped by the size of the area, and the hunters were handicapped by the amount of time designated to find their prey.

Whether hunted or hunter, it was a thrill. I remember trying to hide my tracks by swinging through trees, or walking through a creek with several exit points to delay the hunters. Even with nothing at stake -- no one was going to beat me or arrest me or shoot me -- it was an adrenaline rush striving to escape, to not be caught or found.

Today, the fresh fallen snow may be beautiful, but it's getting a bit tiresome having to move it off the roof and the driveway. Maybe I need to think up a new game to make it more invigorating.

What kind of games did you play?

Five Blessings About Tonight's Winter Blast

For the record we've had quite a bit more cold than usual this year in Northern Minnesota. And, for the record, we've quite a bit of snow as well. It's been a while since I heard so many people complain about our winters here. Today we're being ravaged by yet another "snow event" and as I blew the snow off my drive tonight (knowing I would have to do it yet again tomorrow morning) my thoughts kept culling the positives from this current blast. Here are a few of them.

1) It's a wonderfully balmy 25 degrees and not 25 below with a wind chill of forty below. Sweet.

2) The fresh snow will look gorgeous when the clouds clear and we have sun again. It always does.

3) The forecast was for a wet, heavy snow. This snow was thin, lightweight and relatively pleasant to blow thus far.

4) The forecast was for 1-4 inches this afternoon and then an inch an hour for the next twelve. From what I could tell only a half inch fell in the hour I was clearing my 300 foot driveway and walkways.

5) The electric start on my snow blower failed earlier this winter. After trying to figure out how to fix it I learned that the electric start was a luxury and the pull cord would get the snow blower started even without it.

I don't know what we'll find tomorrow morning but so far it's just another snow event here. The roads get cleared and life goes on. In today's world even if you can't get to the office you can still do email there and interact, make progress on projects and meet deadlines. Alas.... it's a whole new world.

For closure, here's a poem rich with warmth by Percy Blythe Shelley about winter.

Virtual Snow

Too bad it's not virtual snow. Then I could use virtual money to buy a large, new virtual snowblower.

Old Man Winter let us know that he hasn't forgotten us. Fortunately the worst of it passed us by. Based on forecasts the past two days I'd been worried that tonight I would not be able to get home from work. Whew!

Tonight, while deciding what to write about here my bro' from Pennsylvania called. As we briefly skimmed across a topics we came to this one, and I pass it on for your entertainment.

Essentially, the U.S. Mint introduced a program in which enabled people to get Frequent Flyer miles by buying U.S. coins. Because there were no shipping costs, people could buy the coins with credit cards that offered rewards, take them straight to the bank and pay off those cards with the cash. Net net: the more coins they got, the more Frequent Flyer perks.

The Wall Street Journal article relays a number of stories about clever citizens who took advantage of this crack in the system including one man who took his wife to Tahiti for a two week vacation in October.

I don't fully understand the economics of it, though. It costs the government money (taxpayer dollars) to ship the coins, so it is a loss to the Mint any way you look at it. Even if the U.S. Postal Service waived the charges for shipping the coins, someone is paying for the fuel to make the delivery. It's all pretty weird to me. It's a virtual snowjob. Now where's that virtual snowblower when you need it?

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

A little tribute for this, the longest night of the year, Robert Frost's marvelous poem Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Whose woods were they? Of what significance are these dark woods to this rider? What were those promises he aimed to keep? And why the duplicate reinforcement at the end regarding the length of the journey?

It's a simple poem, but the great poets take simple observations to new levels of understanding.

The relationship between the horse and rider is also interesting. The horse doesn't fully grasp the rider's pause. Is it melancholy, nostalgic dreams, a glimpse of something lost, or perhaps of something spectacular. And maybe that is the poet's gift to us, to paint a simple image, a moment in time, and allow our own souls to engage it, to make it ours.

Here a few images of my own from last night as the snow continued to challenge all the planned activities of this pre-Christmas weekend. Nothing so wonderful as this poem by Mr. Frost, the San Francisco born New Englander who received four Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Winter's Last Huzzah

That's what the soldiers would shout as they came across the field of battle. "Huzzah!" They'd put on a fierce battle face, stoke their courage and pour their very fiber into it. "Huzzah!"

Old Man Winter rolled into the Northland during the night, and has likewise made an effort to intimidate us with a fierce face, screaming "Huzzah! with fifty mile an hour winds, and a dense wet snowfall that is no small chore to push aside.

The people in these parts, however, are not easily intimidated. They hunker down and wait for that blustery assault to blow itself out, knowing that Sunday's forecast is for warmer weather and the week ahead will be warmer still.

Wind and snow do make for dangerous driving conditions, but the worst appears to be behind us already. I had fun snapping a few early morning photos while the wind and snow relentlessly raged. The accumulations of snow on the chain link fencegate were so Escheresque that I took the liberty of using my PictureGear program to modify the images I captured so as to turn them into more abstract designs.

We'll still have a little more "weather" to deal with through tomorrow but I've got a feeling that the worst is already behind us.

Note: Click on images to enlarge.

AMSOIL Duluth Nationals

This weekend the snowmobile racing world comes alive as the AMSOIL Duluth Nationals are underway. Enthusiastic masses descend upon Spirit Mountain to stand outside in frigid temps drinking beer and beating their chests. Will it be Polaris, Arctic Cat, Ski-Doo or Yamaha atop the podiums at the end of it all? Naturally, I will be rooting for D.J. and Shaun on the AMSOIL Polaris sleds.

The AMSOIL Duluth Nationals is akin to opening day at Yankee Stadium. You just gotta be there if you are part of the snowmobile scene.

Despite the lack of Northland snow, the temperatures plunged enough to make plenty for the races. On the far side of the track the base must be close to 25 feet deep since the event is held on a ski slope that slopes away and down from the lodge. With the Aerial Lift Bridge in the background and the full moon illuminating all last night, it was quite a spectacular site.

The locals, as well as all the AMSOIL people present, were thrilled by the exhibition Team AMSOIL put on. Local hero D.J. Eckstrom literally smoked everyone in the Winter X qualifiers. Shaun Crapo likewise showed that the AMSOIL sleds will be something to reckon with as he, too, won his feature almost effortlessly. The boys are looking strong and the sleds dominant, thanks to the tireless work of Steve Scheuring and his team of mechanics.

At the end of day one the season looks promising. But it is a dangerous sport and no one takes anything for granted.

Thought food: Some of these riders have flown over 130 feet through the air on their snowmobiles, sometimes getting as high as 30 feet off the ground. The Wright brothers' first flight was only 120 feet, and I do not think they went quite that high, yet they called it flying.