You couldn't do better than Suicide Hill

You couldn't do better than Suicide Hill(L DOUGLAS ST OURS) YOU COULDN'T DO BETTER THAN SUICIDE HILL

For the fastest sledding,
slickest surface and most spectacular crashes
you couldn't do better than Suicide Hill.

The Suicide was on a steep slope
on the southern boundary of the municipal park
where the vintage Korean War Corsair sat.
Sure a lot of hills were steep
but none of the others featured
a staircase contoured into three successive
and neck breakingly abrupt terraces.

It was popular and lively day and night
through the dark and dead of winter.
I was in the eighth and ninth grades
when I'd pitch in with peers and upperclassmen
feeding and stoking a towering log fire
between the sleigh landing zone and
a frozen tributary of the Rivanna River.

By then my family's storied Byesville Toboggan
was battered useless by the cumulative effects
of one hundred plus collisions with pasture fences.
So after every decent snow I'd bring instead my Flexible Flyer.

As I approached the launch,
I'd hold my sled hip high
then take off and run as fast as I could
then flop onto the speeding sled
and maneuver it through
heart stopping sprints,
dare devil leaps,
hair raising rollovers,
and death defying crack ups
especially when striking
a treacherous terrace
which you would either
slam into like a wall
or catch just right,
skim the ice and soar
into the ultimate skyward thrill.

It mattered not that
you possessed the skills
to dodge wayward sledders,
because the perfect run
resembled Eskimo drivers
in a demolition derby
knocking off their feet
the Penguin people.

Mid day February 1964,
schools are closed for inclement weather
and there I was a scrawny eighth grader
at the crest anticipating while waiting my turn
at another mad cap run for powdery glory
when I noticed six varsity jocks, a few years my senior,
crowded on a seven foot toboggan looking for a shove.
They were linked by their legs,
rear guys' boots in the front guys' laps,
they looked like a bundled up undulating caterpillar.
You Couldn’t Do Better...
One of the athletes shouted "Hey kid!
How about giving us a push?"
I told him sure as long as they let me jump aboard.
"You got it, but only after you give us a flying start!"
I gave us a run for the money and at the point of no return
I hopped onto the lap of a three letter star...basketball, football, and track.

We accelerated to an electrifying bump and rush
over the initial humps - a taste of things to come.
Our colorful scarves flapped behind us like
the entrails we might soon bust and lose.

Then we smacked the first terrace
and for a second our bodies sprung upwards
higher than the airborne rocket sled
before we pancaked onto the narrow toboggan
as it slammed against the hardened ground.
All six players yelped as their tail bones cracked
on the unforgiving laminated lumber,
a stark contrast to my soft landing
on the cushy crotch of the poor soul beneath me.

I was literally crushing his balls, the thought of which
made me weary trying to stifle my laughter as he howled in pain.
He was desperate yet unable to disentangle himself
because the guy in front was tightly clenching his legs
while the legs of the guy behind him were clamped around his chest.
Just as the second terrace hurled us skyward my unfortunate companion,
unwilling to suffer another scrotum squash, used the momentum
to throw me off and I rolled easy across the snow.

For an instant I saw the bottom of the toboggan
as it nose dived like a crippled jet then vanished.
Immediately I heard a slam and bam.
I crawled to the edge of the terrace.
I saw a lot of injured boys twisting and moaning
like casualties from a bomb blast.
The toboggan had broadsided another capsized toboggan
and twelve magnificent young men were strewn
about the impact zone like rag dolls belly aching.

Their akimbo bodies laid helter skeltered and shadowed
by the gray dim sun, silhouetted by the fire down below,
but they would rise up, brush off and make another run,
but from my point of view it was a strangely hilarious scene.

by L DOUGLAS ST OURS
July 2010