Maggie's Farm

I grew up with a marvelous sledding hill, plentiful snow, and a harness for my St. Bernard who would pull my sled or a whole bunch of sleds up the hill. It was probably 80 to 100 yards long (never measured, but trying to compare to a football field in my imagination) At the bottom of the hill was a railroad track (Union Pacific branch line).

For my November birthday party, my dad had groomed the hill and the driveway, and late in the day a railroad work party arrived to dig out to crossing. As usual, they just tossed the snow and gravel from their efforts off in the middle of the hill and driveway for someone else to clean up. My dad was more than annoyed, and carefully packed enough snow back in the crossing to make the sled run once again spectacular, and, I'm afraid, in a fit of pique, poured a little water on to be sure it would work.

The party was, as always, great. It wasn't until late in the evening when a train came up the line, and derailed at the crossing. They had to send to Ogden, UT for a crane to put it back on the tracks. I told this story once to a Union Pacific VP at a convention in Sun Valley, and he thought it was hilarious. Fortunately it was a long time ago, when our society wasn't so litigious.