Bobsled This

Bobsled This

For some reason, the only winter Olympic sport I like to watch is the bobsled, in teams of two, three and four sledders.  It starts with a sprint on an ice track sloping downward, everyone pushing the bobsled to get a head start, then jumping in one by one to form an aerodynamic mass.  Better yet, the track looks like it’s based on a gopher burrow with the top peeled off so people can watch the lunatics speed by as they try not to crash or fall out of the bobsled.  Now that’s entertainment.

Clare and I used to do something like this when she was small.  There’s a bluff not far from us in Riverside that leads down to the Des Plaines River, and it’s perfect for sledding, for anyone not afraid of killing themselves; of course, my child wasn’t.  No, we’d get on our sled and hold on for dear life as river’s edge came ever closer, or so it seemed.  Two or three times down that bluff, and I was ready to update my will.

I never knew snow could be so bumpy.  We’d be zooming downhill, and all of a sudden it felt like we were going over railroad tracks at 60 mph; oh, and there was an invisible gorilla on my shoulders, too.  Dad, let’s go again!  Ok, but we have to get Mr. Peeps back to the zoo before it gets dark.

Thank God for softball.  Once I saw that Clare had some talent, that was the end of  sledding for us.  I didn’t want my daughter spending the season with a cast on her leg, or me trying to navigate the bleachers wearing one, or two.