Belly-flopping

This might have gone the way of the buggy-whip. Kids don't carry schoolbags anymore. They have back packs with $700.00 of electronic equipment, C.D.s, DVDs and cell phones. The school bag an envelope shaped carrier made of any kind of fabric with separators for books loose leaf binder and other school supplies. Since Chicago is as hilly as a cookie sheet. We lucked out with having an empty lot next to where the Meadows family lived. The lot had twelve foot vertical drop and a eighty-five foot run out from the cobble stone alley where there was a slight rise about four feet from all the compacted broken chunks of concrete, busted beer and soda bottles, pieces of old clapboard siding, dirt and other debris piled to the alley side of this lot. It once had a two story wood frame apartment house that was built before the Chicago fire. What was once a first floor and basement became our sledding hill.
Conversations marching two by two down the stairwell at the end of the school day as to whether or not the snow was good packing was our primary thought. On the best of snowfalls we were geared up for a good time. Walking through the alley to "Meadows Hill" the anticipation build our pace increased and our schoolbags lifted and held tightly to our chests. Now at a full run and the commitment to flop down onto your schoolbag and ride the hill and out distance your buddies. It always turned into a competition, speed, distance it was always fun. More in "Backstreets" .....TT