Snow Wrestling

Winter has come to North-East Ohio and left a dusting of snow where there was only the green of grass, and the yellows and browns of fallen leaves yesterday. I reminds me of being fourteen and having nothing better to do.

I had gotten together with my buddies and we headed for the one warm spot outside that we could find that was away from our parents. We went to the root cellar. The temperature outside hovered at sixteen, but the cellar was a comfy fifty degrees year around. There wasn't much to recommend it. It was damp, had a dirt floor, discolored block walls, a warped and moldy kitchen table, fruit crates for chairs, one large five-gallon crock, a floor drain that attracted toads, and reeked of rotten apples. Lighting and heat was provided by whatever candles we could scrounge. This particular evening, Matt and Carl had managed to acquire a six pack of good beer, although I would question the idea that they had gotten it honestly. Carl had brought along his scrawny friend Chris from the local trailer court who was a known thief and a liar. So instead of two beers each, it was divied four ways.

This was my second beer I'd ever had and I aimed to savor it. Carl and Chris guzzled their's down like they had spent a week in the desert and eyed the remaining beers like stray dogs watching through a butcher's window. Matt and I lingered over ours and chatted about what we were going to do this evening. Carl suggested a snowball fight as the snow was two and a half feet deep. We all thought that this was an excellent idea, but none of us was dressed warm enough to withstand more than a few minutes of the chill.

"I brought two pairs of insulated coveralls," Carl offered, "but they are huge and wouldn't fit any of us, and they still wouldn't be enough for us all."

Now the minds of fourteen year old boys are not to be plumbed easily, especially when these kids have had a beer and a half apiece. Upon further examination, we discovered that these coveralls were big enough for two of us each, so we pulled them on in pairs, with Matt and I in one and Carl and Chris in the other. We stomped around the root cellar for a couple of minutes until we felt we had the feel of it and then headed outside.

Picture a three legged race, but with someone on your back and you have a picture of what we were trying to do.

The first obstacle that we had to face was the steps out of the cellar. Matt and I cleared them with very little trouble with chants of left-right, left-right, while Carl and Chris struggled to make the first step. Eventually we made it to Matt's snow laden back yard. The going was slow because of the deep snow, but with a little bit of a practise run, Matt and I worked out our signals and managed to do a decent jog. We were no Jesse Owens, but we could keep to our feet and throw a half decent snowball with enough planning.

Carl and Chris had trouble standing, let alone moving about or coming up with enough coordination to pitch a snowball. They spent most of their time struggling to get up in much the same way a turtle on it's back does. After watching them try to regain their feet for the umpteenth time, Matt and I decided that snowballs would be abandoned, as none of us had the good sense to bring gloves, and we would just wrestle instead.

With many screams of glee, we chased Carl and Chris around the backyard and toppled them over again and again. Matt and I would give them a chance to recover and would march off to a corner of the yard while they would scream at each other over their plight. After a while, even this got boring and the game changed to tag. They couldn't catch us and fell face first into the drifts again and again. And while Matt and I had generated enough heat to make us sweaty, Carl and Chris had managed to soak themselves in snow right down to their underwear. After two hours of frustrating defeat, they called it quits and headed home in a huff.

This is the only sporting match I have ever won.

After our heated victory, Matt and I headed back to the cellar. From the large crock pot in the corner he pulled two more cold beers and we toasted our victory over the local hoodlums. The victory and the beer both tasted sweet even though the air reeked of rotten apples.

Doc