Need For Speed

Need For Speed

Unlike the Lynchburg, "City of Seven Hills", Roanoke is ringed by mountains.  The valley floor is gently rolling, providing many opportunities for winter fun.  Sledding in the valley, is a celebrated winter activity.  Roanoke doesn't get enough snow for snow to become mundane or an annoyance.  Rather, it's viewed as a gift from God; one to be celebrated and enjoyed.

Back in the frigid, snowy 1960’s, Roanoke received many excellent winter storms that allowed for extended sledding.  My neighborhood was a sledding Mecca.  I lived on the Cove Road side of Garstland Drive in Roanoke County, near what is now “The Countryside Land-use Squabble.”

Priming the Sled

In the winter, many a dare-devil child raced his runner sled through the tangled brush and completed a jump off the top of the cave onto the floor of the pasture ten feet below.

Whenever a snowstorm approached, my father would walk out to the “barn’ and unhook the sleds from their spots on the wall and carry them into the basement sled laboratory. I used to follow him watching his every move. First, he’d make his way to the back of the small shed past the roto-tiller and lawnmowers and carefully take down our three sleds. The small nameless ancient runner sled was the first to come out, and I usually got to carry it. Its wooden slats were discolored, aged, and primed with splinters. Next out was the super sleek Lightning Guider. What a beast. It stood against the wall with an air of cocky arrogance. It knew it was fast and had nothing to prove. The last sled on the hook was the long family sedan. It was the sled young kids rode with their father. It never traveled faster than a turtle thanks largely to the inwardly bent runners and shaky construction.

My father passed along all I ever needed to know about how to care for a sled properly. The runners were THE key to successful sledding he used to profess. My father taught me patience in the sled shop. First using medium grit sandpaper, we’d address the runners taking the crusty layer of rust off. After making a few passes with the paper, a clean towel buff and then it was on to step two. Next my father would go to a fine grit paper and work on smoothing any blemishes on the runner surface. He was especially keen to get corrosive bubbles that would erupt from time to time on the steel blades. After another quick buff, he’d move on the steel wool phase. I used to love this part. I’d get some steel wool and rub it back and forth along the runners. After a few passes, they would begin to glisten. After wiping them, I’d run my finger along the blade. My father taught me that if your finger coasts along the runner with no resistance, then the blade was ready for the final application. Finally, we’d get out the candles. Dad used regular broken candlesticks. He wasn’t too picky. We’d rub the candle along the runner, applying a thin coat of wax to each runner all along the course of the blade. When all steps had been completed, the sleds were ready for fun.

You knew you had a fast sled when you attached a rope to it and pulled it behind you to the sled run. If the sled followed effortlessly and passed you in a hurry on the way down hills, then you knew you were in for a fantastic evening.

Sledding was something that I lived for. Around my house, a multitude of runs had been developed. The Garst pasture near our Garstland Drive house was home to four solid runs. Many a dare-devil child raced his runner sled through the tangled brush and completed a jump off the top of the cave onto the floor of the pasture ten feet below. Our community mainstay, however, was the Garstland Drive hill. Every so often, a storm would lay down the perfect track and the neighborhood would come out at night to burn some tires and train down the hill. I spent many happy and thrilling hours sledding on and around Garstland Drive.

The Ultimate Plunge

“It’s a terrible thing to live in fear.”

 ~Red Redding, The Shawshank Redemption

In the summer of 1976, my family moved from Garstland Drive, fleeing the effects of forced annexation by Roanoke City and the associated school changes, neighborhood racial make-up changes, and home price changes.  I really didn’t want to move, because I really loved my neighborhood and my friends, but these decisions really weren’t mine to make.

We moved to a new subdivision in the wilds of Bonsack called LaBellvue.  My parents chose a one story brick ranch almost at the corner of East Ruritan Rd, Coachman Circle, and Donagale Drive.  Little did I know at the time, how my sledding fortunes would ratchet upwards.

The winters of 1977 and 1978 were a bit strange.  They both had some intense cold streaks with tiny snows that fused into white ice on the roadways.  The ice refused to budge and Roanoke was essentially paralyzed by 2” of snows.

LaBellvue was just being developed back then, and it was progressing up Read Mountain steadily every year.  Just around the corner from my house, Donagale Drive intersected Coachman Circle.  Coachman then went almost straight up the side of Read Mountain from an elevation of about 1200 ft to 1400 ft with only one gentle bend to the right.  I figured that it was about a tenth of a mile between each intersecting street until you reached Summit Ridge Road.  That was the ceiling of the subdivision back then, but it goes on almost to the top of the mountain now, but utilizes switchbacks to get there.

Being young, daring, and stupid gives one feelings of invulnerability. At least, that’s what it did for me.  I remember prepping my sled and trekking up Coachman on those frozen nights.  You actually couldn’t walk on Coachman because the road was ice-glazed and reflected the porch lights like a mirror.  Instead, you had to walk in the yards beside the road, shuffling across driveways in order to stay vertical.

Summit Ridge was the launch point, just over 1/3 of a mile from the intersection with Donagale.  The idea was to get a running start at Summit Ridge and hurtle down the mountain at break-neck speed.  Depending on my sled and the road’s ice conditions, I could attain perhaps 40 mph or more.

The bottom of the hill was fraught with split-second decisions for me.  Just before the STOP sign, the road bent to the left.  On the right side was a huge concrete-lined ditch. The first decision I had to make was to determine if I was positioned to make that gentle leftward sweep and avoid the ditch.  Immediately afterward, I had to determine if any cars were coming from East Ruritan to turn onto Donagale. Actually, it was smarter to do the latter first.  If all was clear, then I was a-okay to blast through the t-intersection at 40+ mph.

The last calculation needed really never happened because distance passed too quickly to make it.  On the other side of the road, there was a driveway that went steeply uphill.  If I was centered in the course, I would fly across the intersection and up that drive, slowing to a gentle stop at its top.  Of course, if I was off center and managed to avoid the ditch on the right, I’d most likely strike the utility box beside the driveway.

I got pretty good about knowing when a bad run was happening early on.  I might glance up through the blinding sleet or freezing rain and see headlights of some foolish car traveler trying to get home, and I’d have time to bail out.

My bail-out move was something I perfected on that hill.  Once identifying pending doom, I would smoothly slip off the side of the sled with my arm remaining across the sled as if I were escorting a date into an elegant restaurant.  My polyester winter coat was sledding material in its own right, so to avoid becoming a human missile; I’d fan my legs and arm out causing as much surface friction as possible.  I’d rotate my body and my dance partner’s runners so that I could use them as metal brakes.  I could usually stop at the STOP sign with this method, except when I couldn’t.

I can’t recall getting any serious injuries from wrecks back then, but I do suspect I had a few concussions from hitting the ditch or utility box.  I seem to recall a sled passing under a car once, but I had slid aside just in time like Tom Cruise away from a bomb blast.

I don’t know if people still sled down Read Mountain, but I can assure you, it was a true speed thrill.  The walk back up was always long, but the view of the entire valley, lit up at night was worth it alone.  “It’s a terrible thing to live in fear.”

Part one of this story was written in 2009 about ten months before my father passed away. I finished it the day after Roanoke’s historic 22” snow in February of 2014