The Igloo

The winters were rather harsh in Maryland. The snow banks piled up to immeasurable heights when the wind blew. Our first winter in Maryland, the snow drifts covered the back of our building, completely blocking the back door and nearly allowing for a fun snow slide from the 2nd story windows. I remember fondly an igloo my dad made for my brother one winter when I was around 4 years old. It was the one and only igloo I ever really enjoyed. Even at an early age I hated the freezing cold.

My dad had gotten a snow shovel and had worked for hours out in the chilled air to clear the sidewalks for the neighbors. I remember the way my father piled up all the snow next to the building where the laundry machines sat running on the other side of the red brick wall. The drier heater vent pumped nice, warm air out of that vent every time it was turned on. My dad hollowed out the igloo over the top of that vent.

The first time my brother and I went out to the igloo, I remember my hands were freezing from wearing the only knitted mittens I had. They were nice and warm, as long as you didn’t attempt to pick up snow with them. Once inside the igloo, I started feeling warm and cozy, as if I were in the house sitting on the floor in front of the television. The heat from the laundry machines warmed the igloo up so much that it began to melt and drip on us just a little.

It started to get late. The sun was setting. We began to get cold and decided to go back in the house before our teeth chattered out of our heads from the freezing water. That night, after my mom got done running the laundry, the night air was chill. The parts of the igloo we thought would melt away refroze as we slept, but this time they formed a thick layer of solid ice. Our igloo had become an impenetrable fortress, complete with ice cicles hanging from the doorway like sharp daggers.

Every time my brother and I went out to the igloo and shimmied on our bellies to avoid breaking the hanging ice carrots, my mom would run the drier again. Every time we came inside, the process would repeat. The igloo would refreeze as another sheet of ice would form. Eventually, we no longer had an igloo. We had a dome made entirely of refrozen melted snow, as see-thru as the glass blocks forming the walls of the shower in my mother and fathers bathroom. It was a magical, crystal kingdom belonging only to us.

That igloo still stood that spring long after the rest of the snow had melted and the only things left of the neighborhood snowmen were the coal eyes in the grass by the sticks some child had used as arms for their chilly friend. The neighborhood kids were jealous of my brothers’ igloo. One day a band of young boys were seen jumping on top of the igloo, trying their best to cave it in. My brother started to panic! His fort, his mighty indestructible fort, was tumbling like the Alamo!

My mother came up with an old saying then. “If you can’t beat them, join them,” she told my brother. He instantly ran out and decided he was going to be the one to cave in his precious fort. They didn’t deserve to! He jumped with the other boys for nearly an hour before the roof of the ice castle finally gave way, tumbling all of the boys inside the walls. Peering out of the window, all I could see were about 12 snow boots sticking up at odd angles. When he came back inside, my brother was extatic. Soaked from head to toe, he proclaimed that it was the most fun he had participated in since he could remember.

I've never seen another ice fortress like the one my father made for us in all my travels, but just like my family, that ice fortress was special because it was a one of a kind. It was chilly and cool to the touch, but when it took us in, its warmth lasted long after the rest of the world had forgotten the snow ever touched our lives. It remained when all else had long since faded into distant memories of coal black eyes and stick figure arms in the budding grass.

Gum in the Hair

I learned a trick as a kid from my mother that I will never forgot - though I can guarantee not to repeat the reason I know the secret trick. Did you know peanut butter will dissolve the sticky gluten in chewing gum?

I loved gum as a kid. I can't count the number of times I would fall asleep with gum in my mouth, chewing it as I drifted off to sleep. Most of the time I would wake up with it tucked away in my cheek, where I had stored it like a chipmunk. I had a history of doing this as a kid, too. I would eat and eat, storing anything I didn't want (as an infant) in my cheeks. I would fall asleep with food in my mouth and my mother would dig it out, afraid I would choke on it. That should have been a fear for me at 6 and 7 years old, falling asleep with gum in my mouth, but I just didn't think that way.

One night, rather than tucking it safely into my cheek, it found its way out of my mouth and into my long, beautiful hair. In the morning I ran my fingers through it to get it away from my face, and Lo! My fingers stopped just below my chin. Something prevented them from continuing. I picked up the piece of hair my fingers were stuck in up to eye level and looked. A huge gob of pink gum was smushed wide and flat through a chunk of my hair wide enough to be covered by three of my thumb prints. I must have fallen asleep with SEVERAL pieces in my mouth from the looks of this gob!

I knew I would be in trouble for this one, so I went straight to the bathroom and grabbed my hairbrush. I ran the brush through my hair - or tried. It got stuck immediately. I pulled and my hair pulled. I pulled harder and my hair started to break off. I pulled yet harder and chunks of my hair started to dislodge from my head by the roots. I cried, swallowed hard, and called for my mom.

As I suspected, she screamed at me. She yelled, swatted me, hollered some more, smacked me in the back of the head, and told me that I got what I deserved.

The first thing we tried was ice. She had heard somewhere that if you froze the gum, you could just break it off. It was painfully obviously very early on that this wasn't going to work. I cried harder. She yelled louder. We moved on when the comb she was trying to use broke three teeth off into my hair.

I think we tried mayonnaise next. That was a greasy disgusting stunt, that one. I remember her handing me the wad of hair and telling me to work the mayonnaise into it for a while. I held that glob of mayonnaise in my hands and rubbed that gum for a good 10 minutes. Afterward I felt like I would never get the greasy feeling off of my fingertips. To this day I get a slightly sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach if mayonnaise touches my fingers. I love to eat it on my sandwiches and burgers - but don't dare let me get any on my hands!

Hair moose didn't work either. Neither did olive oil or Petroleum Jelly. Rubbing alcohol, hand lotion, toothpaste and WD-40 didn't work. At this point, my hair looked and smelled like something between a garage and a bathroom with a touch of the kitchen thrown in there somewhere. You'd be amazed at how many hints and tips there are for getting WD-40 and mayonnaise out of your hair. Here I was with a carport bathroom full of NON-hair products on my head, without a clue as to what we were going to do next.

Finally Mom pulled out the peanut butter. She pulled out a big fistful and squished it into my hair, smashing it in deep and pounding it onto the cutting board on the counter as I sat on a stool. The banging of the cutting board on the counter behind me started to give me a headache. It was either that or all the hair pulling.

Finally, after about 30 minutes with the peanut butter and more than 2 hours late for school, I was able to run a comb through my hair. Mom trimmed out the rest of the stuff we couldn't get out, leaving a slightly empty spot in my waist length hair.

I stopped chewing gum for a while after that, and when I did finally start chewing gum again it was NEVER after dinner. That's the rule even now.

So - when your kid gets gum in her (his) hair, skip the WD-40 and Mayonnaise... go straight for the peanut butter. Don't even reach for the vaseline. Just grab the Skippy and have some patience.