Winter Fun ‘Down South’

People talk about all the snow in Buffalo, NY.  Well, it does get its share of the white stuff.  However, nothing like the snow the South Towns get.  The South Towns are exactly that, towns located south of the City of Lights.  They are the winter Mecca of the Western NY area, precisely because of all that snow.  My friends and I loved to ski and toboggan, and later snow mobile and snow board “down south.”  Our favorite winter destinations were Kissing Bridge and Chestnut Ridge.

There were many “firsts” associated with KB and Chestnut:  My first run down a main ski slope at KB, which led to the first time I had to yell for people to “get out of the way” as I picked up too much speed and managed to fall just a few feet before skiing straight into the lodge.  Then, there was the time I had my first, (and last), drink of Southern Comfort, from a bottle passed around under the seats of the bus taking us tobogganing at Chestnut.  I got pretty silly and sick.  Two of my best friends were mad at having to hold my arms to walk around outside, and then hold my head inside the restrooms.  They got over it pretty fast, though, when the group we were with got tired waiting in line and crashed their toboggans down an unauthorized slope.  A couple managed to get their first broken bones that trip.

Mostly, though, our times were great fun.  Even when I was in my twenties and on tour a lot as a singer, there’d still be time for winter escapes.  One year, some musician friends from Hawaii came with us for their first time tobogganing.  The keyboard player was blind, but up for most anything, when he went “sightseeing” as he said.  The rest of his group sat him up front, not one of them wanting to sit there.  I worried that he would have a hard time of it, without the advantage of seeing where he was racing.  Instead, he loved it and was our lead man all day.  In truth, I think the cold was a lot rougher on these Pacific Islanders than the speed out of the chutes.  So, later I took them to my favorite place of all for enjoying winter in the South Towns; inside a lodge by the fire with a hot drink, watching the other snow birds go by.