EASY SLIDE: “If you were from Cyclone, best sled riding was on
Pearsol Hill. I’d wax the rails on my Duncannon Lightning Guider
and beat everyone of those hilltoppers to the bottom. My knickname
back then was the Sled Slayer. If you had seen me coming, you had
better have gotten out of my way because I was lightning fast!”
That’s the word today from Chauncey Kan of Panama City Beach,
Fla.
Margaret Sutterlin of New Port Richey, Fla., writes, “Speaking
of my favorite hill to sled on brought back so many memories of
Sudocks hill on High Street in Custer City. The boys in the
neighborhood would fill cans of oil from an open barrel and line
the hill with the burning cans so we could see at night. Most of
the boys had homemade skippers and would make bumps to go over. The
whole neighborhood would gather there and would spend hours there.
In later years the hill was planted with pine trees, but it was the
greatest to me.”
Tom Ewell of Montgomery, N.Y., adds: “The best hill(s) for
sledding; are you kidding? There was only one — and that was in
State Park on the right as you come down from Interstate Parkway by
where the horse trailers now park and unload.”
“That place used to be packed on Saturdays and Sundays.
Although some people from Lewis Run might argue that the hill on
Big Shanty Road by the Gas Plant was also an excellent spot.
Depending on who the operator at the plant was, they would let you
come in to the office and get warmed up. Probably every
neighborhood had their own ‘favorite hill.’
“A cousin of mine lived in a small city in central Ohio in the
’60s and ’70s and they would shut down a couple of streets that
were a ‘hill’ by their definition (bumps in the road by ours) from
4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday so kids could go sledding
after school; don’t know if this could be done these days due to
legal/liability concerns.
“With all this talk of swimming holes and sledding hills it
sounds like there might be a book in the works somewhere — ‘The
Great Swimming Holes and Sledding Spots of McKean County’ — with
the photos in black and white, of course. “
