Just before Christmas, I was chatting on Facebook with some high school friends.  We were reminiscing about living in Rock Island long ago.  We remembered walking home from school as the snow fell.  It was nearly dark by 5 p.m. so, if we stayed for after-school activities, we might be walking home with dark almost upon us, car lights flickering on the wet sidewalks and streets.  Sometimes the flakes were huge and melted as soon as they hit the ground, so the pavement was just sparkly and wet.  And it was ok to walk alone those last few blocks to home.

On Saturday mornings, I headed for Lincoln Park to ice skate and stayed all day.  When I was in 5th grade, I got in trouble because my cousin from Davenport was with me, and I wouldn't take her home when she said she was freezing.   I just kept telling her to skate or go sit by the fire.  The tennis courts in the park became an ice rink in the winter with what we called the "hot house" in one corner.  It was a leaning shack that looked the same every winter, so I guess the park people dismantled it at the end of every February and stored it until the following November.  Just four sides and a door, no roof.  We kids piled split wood on the fire and kept it going, and I loved the smell of the burning wood.  Even now when I smell a wood-burning fire, it makes me think of the hot house in Lincoln Park.

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