Peteetneet Hill-Billies

For gravitational acceleration there was not much better sledding than the side hill of a decommissioned school in the next town over named after a displaced Indian chief – Peteetneet. It is about a hundred feet tall and awesomely steep with deep ruts worn through the snow to icy dirt. On any given holiday or weekend in the winter there would be a couple of hundred people sledding and tubing down the hill and trying to hike back up without falling back down or being assaulted accidentally or on purpose by other sledders coming down the hill. When I would go with Justin and Ryan we were always causing accidents of the on purpose variety. We wouldn't aim for little kids or families but any boys around our age we would take careful aim on our tube from the top of the hill take a running start and jump on and try to take them out on their way back up the hill. Ryan and Justin liked to really cream people and hopefully start a fight because they were quite violent by nature. I, on the other hand would always try and miss and if I did hit someone, by genuine accident I would apologize profusely to avoid conflict. When I got to the top of the hill again I would pretend that I was super mad that I had missed my target and try and line up another near miss to keep my bully street cred intact. We would spend a couple of hours sledding, hitting and hiking until we were soaked through and our parents came to pick us up. Cold, wet, and worn out sounds like a pretty terrible day to me now so I am glad I got it out of the way when I didn't whine so much.