The winters of the 1940's were cold and snowy in Middle Tennessee. The Cumberland River froze the year I was born, and a Model-T Ford was driven across under the Carthage bridge. The great freeze visited Tennessee in 1951. It was a massive snow and ice storm. I was ten years old and relishing the opportunities to slide, pellmell down Fisher Hill.
At it's very top Fisher Hill involves a sloping left curve then a hard right turn to the hill-proper which is a descent of about 300 feet in about one eighth of a mile. It makes for spectacular sledding. Since we lived near the crest of Fisher Hill, we were involved in all the winter happenings.
There would be any combination of configurations going full tilt around the curves and down the incline: single sledders, two or three on a sled either sitting toboggan fashion or piled on top of each other. Sometimes a linear linkup was attempted where the toes of one sledder would be hooked into the front of the following sled. This arrangement could grow to seven or eight.
Ramps were constructed for jumping, and old tires were burned near our home on Cullum Street to warm the sledders. This was especially important at night when the temperatures plummeted.
There were the usual mishaps when the sharp curve would be missed and the hapless sledder would clobber a maple tree. He'd soon learn to roll off the sled and dig into the snow with his toes when a crash became eminent. A sled-train would be zig-zagging down the hill when a jack-knife would cause all the sleds to pile up.
Once an older fellow sledder was flying down the slope just about to make the hard right onto the steep hill when he encountered a pickup from Waggoner's Grocery coming up the hill. The sledder performed the correct exit-the-sled maneuver and proceeded to body-slide under the truck with head ducked and tucked!! Trucks and cars were considerably higher off the roadway then than they are these days.
On one particularly cold morning Sonny Apple and I were at the bottom of the hill when Sonny decided that he did not want to pull his own sled up the hill and was imploring me to pull it for him along with mine. I was responding negatively to his incessant whining and was just turning around when Baxter Key Jr. plowed into my shins going full tilt. He hadn't yelled a warning and neither had anyone else.
I was knocked into the air and landed directly on top of my head. I remember my brother, Buddy, picking me up, but then I was out-cold for about three hours. The doctor had been summoned, and I was diagnosed as having a concussion. Every year for about twenty thereafter, a large, sore, pump-knot would arise on my shins to remind me of the Baxter Key encounter.
It was a great life to live at the top of Fisher Hill.
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