The Sled

In the heart of Commerce, Iowa, perched on a crest overlooking the Raccoon River, sat a house that defined the word modest. It was a tiny thing, less than a thousand square feet with a single bedroom and an outhouse that turned a midnight bathroom run into a survival mission against the -25 degree wind chill.

But to me, the house wasn't defined by its lack of plumbing; it was defined by its view and the man who lived there; my father. It was a place where gravity and imagination met on a steep, one-acre drop-off that felt like the edge of the world.

The winter of 1968 brought a foot of fresh Iowa snow, the kind that turns a backyard into a sanctuary of possibility. Without a store-bought sled in sight, a lesser father might have told his sons to stay inside where it was warm. But my father was an inventor of the best kind and one who could see a vehicle of joy hidden inside a discarded piece of furniture.

In the dim light of the unfinished basement, an old yellow Formica table was sacrificed for the cause. With some scrap tin, a few 2x4s, and a father's steady hands, a first-class toboggan was born.

That afternoon wasn't just about speed; it was about:

Ingenuity: Learning that if you don't have what you need, you build it.

Courage: Flying down a hillside at breakneck speeds, aiming for the thrill and dodging the wire fence at the bottom.

Presence: A father braving the frigid cold to ensure his sons had a story to tell.

A Frozen Time Capsule

My brother and I took turns for hours and on the final run of that day, the yellow sled met its match. It wedged itself deep under the wire fence at the bottom of the hill, becoming a permanent part of the landscape as the frostbite began to nip at my fingers and toes. For forty years, it stayed there; a yellow secret buried under decades of Iowa seasons.

In March of 2008, the world felt much colder. After my father’s funeral, I stood at that same tiny house for the last time. In the quiet grief of departure, a sudden memory flickered; the sled.

Trudging through the March slush to the corner of the property, I cleared away the snow and earth. There it was: the rusted curve of the tin and a few stubborn shards of yellow Formica.

The sled was mostly gone, reclaimed by the earth, but the inventor remained alive in my heart and mind. That scrap of Formica was a physical bridge to 1968, a reminder that a father’s greatest gift isn’t what he buys, but what he builds with the time and materials he has.

We often spend our lives looking for grand monuments to remember those we love. But more often than not, grace is found in the tiny houses of our past or in the curve of a rusted piece of tin and the memory of a man who could turn an old kitchen table into a chariot for his children.