A few weeks ago I did some reminiscing with you and this may be a good time to continue. It is interesting that there are things that occurred in childhood and as a youth that are remembered, often more so than other periods of life. In many ways life is like a blur -- there is too much to remember and it goes quickly.

Those who keep a diary or perhaps a spiritual journal, have a tool for remembering the past. Keeping a spiritual journal is the proper thing to do in life; still few of us have one. It would be good to have a record of what was done at each Christmas and each birthday.

Perhaps it is the weather that takes us out of our regular routine, anyway it seems like the time to do some reminiscing again. Some people are saying that the winters are not cold like they use to be and they are saying that it is due to global warming. It has happened in the past and then cycles to colder weather. Many of us can remember some cold winters.

I do not know what year it was, but the temperature was below zero for 30 days. You could expect some cold weather like that nearly every year. One winter, I remember, there was ice everywhere. Dad put on his ice skates and skated on the front lawn. He put me in a cardboard box with ropes tied on it and pulled me around on the ice. That was fun for a little boy and was also fun for the parents.

While attending Black School, I remember some of the kids liked it when it snowed. Not me -- that meant extra work. We had a barn where we bedded down the cows, by spreading straw in the barn.

An adult would not think that was a big job, to throw bales of straw down from the loft and spread it out. As a kid that seemed like a big chore -- I would rather have been in the house where it was warm. Once winter was over, it meant cleaning out the barn by hand, using a fork. Again, that was not an easy task. When we were young, it was helping Dad to do it. As we got older, my brother and I got the opportunity.

We loaded the manure spreader and spread it on the pasture. Barns were built differently from the pole sheds that are built now. These days most of it would be removed by a front-end loader and loading it into a spreader. Perhaps it was work done in youth that help prepare a person for life. It did not seem as preparation for life at that time, it was not that much fun.

Barns are becoming extinct, though they are a part of history on our landscape. The barn that we had was built in about 1940, soon after the folks bought the 120 acre farm. Even though we were living in an old house that was extremely cold in the winter, the new barn was built before a new house. The barn was used for making money, which made it more important than a new house.

The new house was built in 1942 and we thought it was wonderful. In the winter time a Warm Morning stove was installed for heating the house.

Later a furnace was installed in the basement. Both the stove and the furnace burned coal, which was stored in a room in the basement. As I think about it, I am not sure of that information. I remember the house of my childhood well, yet we are getting into some details that I do not remember. As I recall the furnace was a coal burning furnace before a propane burner was put into it and converted it to a gas furnace. The house has now been replaced with another house on the farm by the current owner and there is no other person now living that I can visit with about this information.

The furnace was much better in keeping the entire house warm. After getting the furnace, dad made a comment that what he did not like about the furnace is that he could not back up to it as he had done with the heating stove to get warm.

One of the things that I never liked was the cold. It seemed that my feet were always getting cold while helping with chores. Each winter we went ice skating. As I remember we had clip-on ice skates. I do not think we had shoe skates, although dad did. We skated on our pond and on the neighbors pond. Again, my feet got cold. We did not always have good ice to skate on, depending on how it froze. Sometimes snow removal was necessary for skating. We looked forward to the time our feet grew large enough to use his skates.

After we moved to Nevada, there was skating on the lakes, but they were checked for safety and only certain areas were designated for skating. In recent years we have not had long period of cold that would enable skating to be safe.

Still, in recent years when there has been adequate ice thick enough to skate on -- skating was not allowed, largely due to a possible liability.

Kids need the opportunity to have the experience of playing and skating on ice. This most likely has not been proposed to the parks board, at least recently.

How about having an area with a pool about one foot deep that could be flooded and frozen by the weather for skating? It will be at little cost and yet would provide a good winter outing.