Winter Sports and Activities

When I was growing up in chilly, wintery upstate New York. there were many winter activities for us to do. Since there were always heavy snowfalls since we lived south east of Lake Ontario and Oneida Lake, after my father had finished plowing, there was plenty of snow for us to make snow forts and castles from the snowbanks that my father had created with the Doodlebug snowplow. We made castles and forts, with tunnels and pathways through the snow banks. Our dog Sissy liked to play in the snow banks, too. We would have snowball fight and pretend that we lived in an icy faery land.

Back in the woods that belonged to us, my father would often go with us and help us shovel off the snow from a small pond. There we could skate and play hockey on various ponds. Some ponds were good for hockey because they were rather regular in shape. Other ponds were very irregularly shaped and were better for just skating, doing turned and jumps and pretending we were skaters.

One or two years. my father built a skating rink in our back year. He put two-by-fours all around a rectangular layout and then sprayed water on it over and over again until it was the right thickness and level and without pits so that we could skate.

We also had snowshoes and learned how to walk on them on the snow. One year, my parents bought us little skies and we learned a little about skiing--very little. My school had a ski club but I never joined it because it was expensive to go on the ski trips, especially if you didn’t have your own equipment. I would have had to take a couple of lessons, as well. So I was not in the ski club.


Often we would go sledding and tobogganing at the Valley View Gold Course, which had rather steep hells. Sledding and riding on the toboggan was a lot of fun. We always got lots of snow down our boots and snowsuits. My mother would have hot chocolate ready for us when we came home from these outdoor activities.

We often went skating at the Clinton skating rink. It was the home of the Clinton Comets minor league hockey team, and every weekend, they offered low cost skating in the afternoons at the skating rink. Everyone from Utica went out to the Clinton skating rink to skate and meet people. We all had our own skates; I guess our parents bought them because we used our skates so often.

When I lived in Albany, Sabrina and I also went skating quite a bit. There were many skating rinks where we could go to skate. We also liked to go cross-country skiing at the Colonie Gold Course. They made trails and you could rent skis rather cheaply and you could learn to cross-country ski quite quickly. I loved to go cross-country skiing on the Gold Course. You don’t need a lot of equipment or snowsuits. You could ski in just slacks and sweaters.

Those were some of the winter sports we enjoyed.