It snowed last night. Not much. Two or three inches at most.

But it was a beautiful greeting when I opened the blinds. Bright blue sky, sparkling white snow. Not exactly a virgin snow, though. The sun was already high, the city had plowed the walk on the greenbelt, and the snow had settled into the grass enough to be lumpy. In the background, instead of mountains, there was only a frothy band of clouds. The only discernible movement was an occasion clump of snow falling from a tree or fence across the way.

After a while I noticed a few cars over on Main Street, and someone walking a dog by the reservoir. Then, right below me, a dad pulling his two bundled-up kids on a sled… sort of. The sled was not the old Flexible Flyer I grew up with, nor a slablike aluminum toboggan. In was an inflatable. And the child in front was wearing a seat belt.

Now I know I’m getting old. Granted, I can see how an inflatable sled would be great for storage. And certainly there’s no way to get hurt by or on one without getting really creative. And maybe when they are older those kids will have real wooden sleds that they can flop onto and steer down a hill and that have real metal runners that can be waxed or sanded or oiled or soaped for more speed. Without checking the Internet, I don’t know if such sleds even exist today. True, they were hard wood and metal, the steering bar could conceivably pinch fingers, the runners might wound if they ran over flesh instead of snow, and there was always the possibility of hitting something if you lost control.

But I digress. These were just toddlers, and it looked like they were having fun, even though poor dad was laboring a bit to pull that inflatable thing through, not over, the snow. (A real sled wouldn’t function like a plow.) It might have been easier for him to pull with both arms, but under his other arm he was carrying… not an inner tube, not an aluminum saucer, but… you guessed it… a big inflatable doughnut-looking thing.

I hope someday those kids get to fly down a hill on a real sled, like those I remember.

Note: It’s about four hours later and duh! I really am getting old. Only now has it occurred to me that I might might have been (probably was) watching a very ingenious dad using pool toys!