Granted, it wasn't ice skating. Well, not on purpose. I am telling you there are no flat surfaces in Colorado. Not anywhere. Even in the flattish parking lots, there are ice moguls everywhere. It's like downhill slalom walking.

I loved the winter wonderlands of Wisconsin as a youth. As the adults grumbled and mumbled about the plowing, the shoveling and the pushing of carts through decidedly hostile terrain, we spent our days building snow forts, eating snow, and making snowpeople.

Now, as an adult, my tuque is off to all of the adults out there who really had it tough. I know know you had to walk uphill, both ways, in the snow, had to pack a lunch and try to keep from falling on the ice. While you were busy outside clearing the windshield and sliding under the vehicle with the grace of a one-legged chicken, we were indoors, snug-tight in our school clothes playing Colecovision.

While we sat in the warm car listening to out favorite disco tunes, you were out there trying to pull the cart with Herculean tugs towards the vehicle. If you were lucky, you didn't pull the cart over when you held on for dear, sweet life.

While we scoured the television stations for word of school closures, you were downing coffee like a football player goes through Mentholatum, readying yourself for the traffic. You knew cars didn't know how to move faster than 7.3 miles per hour, and that you would have to find your car first under that heap of wintery loveliness.

As I watch my young kids sitting snugly in the house, with their noses pressed against the window taking it all in, I look back and I remember my childhood. And then, like the graceful one-legged chicken, I do my pirouette down the front lawn, turn around, and see laughing and clapping from the crew.

10.0 the front axle was a little weak, but your landing? Priceless.