A Dusty Tires Short Story

By Ken Drenten

When snow falls in sufficient depth, and temperatures stay cold enough to keep the snow on the ground for more than a couple of days, many people in Ohio go to the ski slopes in Mansfield or Bellefontaine. Others take to local hills and parks with snow dishes, sleds and toboggans.

When we were older teenagers, my friends and I went to The Sledding Hill. It was a well-kept secret in those days, a nearly unknown haven for only serious sledders.

In the summertime, the hill was a long, rough-cut fire road that ran below the main road at a campground in southeastern Ohio. We went to the camp for weekend retreats, Scout campouts, picnics, cookouts and summer camps.

Settled in the foothills of the Appalachians, the camp had sandstone rock formations and caves with names like Needle Rock, Turtle Rock, Thin Man’s Pass and Fat Man’s Misery. Hiking trails wound through the camp, and its centerpiece was a lodge and a small lake for fishing and canoeing. 

In the wintertime, the trail that shot down for about 200 yards on an incline of about 20 percent became a secret sledding honey hole. In addition, about halfway down the slope was a smaller track that crossed the main run. At the very bottom of the hill, seemingly a mile away, was an old rickety wooden footbridge.

Mark and I first discovered the hill during a youth camp weekend in January. We reported back to the rest of the group about the stunningly steep and long sledding hill.

At the top of the hill were several large tractor-size inner tubes and some old sleds. Since there was about six inches of snow on the ground, we quickly determined that a number of us would go back to the hill that evening and try it out.

“It’s huge,” I told the rest of the group.

“It’ll be husky as hell,” said Mark. “Husky” was Mark’s word for anything cool, and we adopted it because it was different.

So me, Mark, Wayne, Rick, Steve, Denise, Megan and Peggy trooped over in the snow to the sledding hill that cold Saturday night. It was about a half-mile walk to the hill from the lodge where we were spending the weekend.

As we walked along, it began to snow again lightly. Wayne pulled Mark and me aside.

“I need to talk to you guys before we get there,” he said. We followed him into a dense thicket of pine trees beside the road where we sat down on a log among the fragrant pine needles.

Wayne had a serious look on his face. “I got a crush on Megan,” he said. “What can my two best friends do to help me get together with her?”

“Wow, this got deep pretty fast,” I said.

“I can relate to that,” said Mark.

Before long, we had a strategy all laid out for Wayne and we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves and forgot all about the reason for the impromptu meeting. We started creating little forts on the ground out of pine needles and twigs and kicking each other’s forts down.

Then we remembered the main reason for the venture and hustled after the rest of the group, running, laughing and sliding in the snow.

The snow had stopped, the sky cleared and a full moon was glowing in the crisp January night above us when we got to The Sledding Hill.

Steve looked our way as we walked up to join the rest of the group. “Where you guys been?”

“Aw, man, we had to have a discussion about something. It’s all husky now,” said Mark.

We stood and looked down the hill for a few minutes.

“Pretty steep, huh?” Wayne said.

“Look how long it is,” said Denise.

Mark, Wayne and I grinned at each other. “Husky,” we said in unison.

“Looks like a great slide, let’s go,” said Rick.

We managed to get about three or four people onto the largest inner tube. Several tubes that were somewhat smaller were better fits for one or two people. But they were all fast.

After the first few runs, the slope became iced over, then it became extremely slick. Bounding over the slope had a similar effect as running whitewater in a river raft. There was absolutely nothing that could be done about steering, and the hill was frighteningly fast.

A little later, Steve produced a bottle of something he said would warm us up. The reddish liquid was passed around.

“What is this?” Rick asked as he gagged on the stuff. He held the bottle up in the moonlight.

“This stuff tastes like cherry cough syrup,” Wayne said, after taking a swig.

“What’s a little cherry cough syrup among friends?” Mark asked.

“It’s cherry vodka. I swiped it from my older brother,” Steve said with a grin.

After a few practice runs, we tried linking two tubes together with arms and legs, and attempted to see how long we could ride the hill down with the tubes linked together in a train before they inevitably bounced apart.

Traveling down the hill produced feelings of both fear and exhiliration. The sound of the inner tube as it slid over the snow was like a whisper. This was combined with the shouts and screams of those on board as the tube rocketed and bounced over hard ice patches, ruts and rough spots.

Sometimes hitting those rough spots resulted in people being thrown out of the inner tube and rolling into the snowy underbrush alongside the trail. Other times, tubes struck each other and people went sailing out of the tubes from the collision. We intentionally tried to do this by starting one tube from the top of the hill, then starting another one from the cross trail, which was dubbed Suicide Run.

After each run, we picked ourselves up at the bottom of the hill and hauled the inner tubes back up, laughing, catching our breath and recounting what had happened to each of us during that particular run.

We were having so much fun and making so much noise that the sheriff had been called to check on some late-night noise. We heard the patrol car’s tires crunch to a stop in the snow in the road at the top of the hill. An empty bottle was quickly kicked into a nearby snowdrift.

The deputy got out of the car and walked toward us with his flashlight blinding our eyes. We stood waiting for him.

“You folks have been making quite a bit of noise,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“We’re sledding, sir,” Rick said.

The officer swung his light around the group and focused on Rick. “What you been drinkin’, son?”

“Um, just a milkshake, sir,” said Rick.

“Hmm. Well, I think it’s time you went back to wherever you all came from and call it a night,” the lawman said.

“Hey, why don’t you join us?” I asked without thinking.

“What did you say?” the officer of the law demanded, swinging his flashlight into my face.

“Yeah, do you want to take a run down the hill?” asked Mark. “It’s really husky.”

“Hmm,” he started. “Well, just how fast do you get going?”

“You’ll see,” I said, and pulled up the largest inner tube.

A couple of us helped the deputy onto the tube. Steve, Rick, Denise and I gleefully jumped on too, and the rest of the bunch pushed us off. The tube slid down the hill, flew over a rut, skidded sideways, crashed into a snowbank and finally stopped just short of the footbridge at the bottom of the hill.

Those at the top of the hill could hear distant hoots and shouts of “Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!” from below.

“I hope everyone’s all right,” said Megan.

Wayne peered down the hill and tried to use his most comforting voice. “I think so,” he said. “Looks like they’re all getting up. Yep, they’re all up.”

A few minutes later, we had climbed back up the hill. We were now best of friends with the deputy.

“Did you see me fly completely off the tube when we hit that bump?” he said to no one in particular. “I was actually in the air!”

“We’ve never seen an officer of the law get that perpendicular,” said Rick.

“We lost the handle,” said Steve, laughing.

“Husky!” blurted Mark, nodding his head.

“Yeah, we did — hey, where’s my flashlight?” the officer said. He grabbed at an empty holster on his belt. “It must be down there somewhere.”

We all went down the hill and looked as much as we could, combing through the snow and brush on either side, but no one came up with the flashlight.

About a half-hour later, he admitted defeat. “Well, if anyone finds it, let me know,” he said. “You kids better call it a night now.” He gave me his business card and with that, tromped through the snow back to his car.

By that time we were nearly exhausted, chilled to the bone and ready to head back anyway.

“I’m going back to the lodge,” said Megan.

“With anyone I know?” asked Rick.

Megan’s face turned beet-red. Wayne gave Rick a side-eyed look and hurried to catch up with her.

The moon had traveled across the sky to a point where it seemed in an exact line with the icy track that went down the hill. We stood and gazed at the moon and crystal-clear stars for a few minutes in reverent silence. The trees on either side seemed to reach for the moon with their leafless arms.

“It’s almost like we’ve been here before,” said Steve, who slid closer to Peggy and put his arm around her. 

We finally shook off the mystical effect and began the hike back to the lodge.

All of us, that is, except me. I wanted to make one last run down the hill. I grabbed a sled instead of a tube and went down headfirst. The runners whisked lightly across the snow in the moonlit night. Snow and ice crystals flew into my face, but I didn’t mind. When I got to the bottom of the hill, I realized I had gone further than I had ever gone before.

“I think I’ll remember this night for the rest of my life,” I said out loud, and sat on my sled for a few moments before the cold really started setting in. I began the trek back up the hill.

Waiting for me at the top were Mark and Rick.

“We decided to come back and wait for you. We knew you wouldn’t quit until you made it to the bottom of the hill,” Mark said.

“How did our plan work out for Wayne?” I asked.

“He didn’t need it, I don’t think. Anyway, he’s not here, is he?” said Mark. “It’s husky.”

A few years ago, many decades after that encounter, I went back to The Sledding Hill, though it wasn’t during the winter with snow on the ground.

I stood at the top of the hill and tried to remember what it had been like to shoot down that hill with a strong back, clear eyes and young knees, without a care in the world. Indeed, none of us had the slightest thought that the hill might cause disaster or injury. Thankfully – and surprisingly – there had been no serious injuries, though there had been several bumps, bruises and scrapes.

What was once a trail down the hill was overgrown with weeds and brush. There were no inner tubes or sleds in sight, and no traces left to mark what had happened there so many years before.

I went down the hill a little way and pushed some weeds aside with my shoe. My right foot hit something solid. I looked down and saw a black metal cylinder about a foot long that was covered in rust and half-buried in leaves and dirt. It was a flashlight.

I picked it up, brushed it off and headed back to my car with a slight smile.

One story from The Sledding Hill had become a secret once again, and more than that – it had slipped into the realm of legend.

Ken Drenten is creator and editor of Dusty-Tires.com, a travel blog for out-of-the-ordinary places in Ohio.

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