Winter Memories

Gosh time sure does go by in a hurry doesn't it?  I don't know what I'm doing with my time but it's obviously not been spent blogging.  So thought I would get on here and share a few thoughts.

I have had a few conversations with a couple of my brothers recently.  I really enjoy those.  I love texting also.  With the aid of his phone one of my brothers was able to share pictures and a video of the snow they are having.  I miss snow, typically we don't get a lot here in Tulsa. 

I was remembering winters from when I was a kid.  Yes, I know some of you are thinking - wow that was a really long time ago.  Well, it doesn't seem that long to me.  We lived in a basement house.  It was built into the side of a small hill - two of walls of the house were kind of underground and two were open. 

My brothers and I used to make a fort at the bottom of the hill -- kind of igloo like.  This was always fun.  Sometimes we would go down to the pond and play ice hockey or go ice skating.  Keep in mind, we didn't really have any ice skates - we just skated with our shoes.  Our ice hockey sticks were actually sticks that we found around the edge of the pond. 

We lived next door to the grade school.  The grade school had a really awesome sled-riding hill.  You could go down the hill and across the flat area (ball field).  If you were lucky enough to get a good slide you could go all the way across the flat area and down the next little hill into the woods.  My brothers and their friends would come over and they let me hang out with them. We had sleds but we used whatever we could find also.  One time we used a car hood and all of us, Wayne, Bub, me, Leon, Butch and the Hansel boys all piled in we really went far. 

We had snowball fights too.  My brothers and I paired up for this like we did for football.  Steve and I on one team and Bub and Wayne on another.  This is were the fort came in handy.  I used to play short stop so I can throw a snowball pretty good. 

I was making some candy last night for work and go to thinking about all the candy my mom used to make at Christmas time.  I don't do near what she did.  Never have been able to make fudge - I quit trying many years ago.  Never have tried divinity as I remember Mom saying it was hard to make.  I do make Coconut Joys usually and Tiger Butter.  Sometimes I make cinnamon candy and Peanut Butter Bon Bons.  I like to make Oreo balls also (Lily calls these dog turds).  I like to do sugar cookies and my personal favorite is Maraschino Nut Cookies.  Unfortunately, I am the only one who likes these cookies and it makes a humongous bunch of cookies.  Gary has recommended I try cutting the recipe in half but I never do.  Why?  Because my mom didn't. 

I also remember drinking hot chocolate out of our big brown mugs.  I still have those mugs.  Some people call them antiques - I still use them on occasion.  I have a lot of 'antiques'. 

Hope you enjoyed my winter memories.  More to come later.