Snowball Fight
Calvin and his companion tiger, Hobbes, wait behind a tree as poor, innocent Suzie approaches. Calvin is armed to the teeth with snowballs. He waits patiently for the right moment to strike. He will strike, even though it will mean fewer Christmas presents this year, a broken promise to Santa. He has that devious grin, legendary in the world of comic books. It develops large across his face just before the wind-up, the release, and then thwap.
Yes, thwap. Or, sometimes, whap. Zing. Fwisshhh. Wump. Even piff.
The sounds of a snowball fight. The first one I heard was rinnggg after my son, Conor, connected to my left ear. I had already explained to him a fundamental rule of snowball fighting wherein you do not aim for the head. Fundamental, maybe, but universally ignored. It got away from me, Dad, he said and I saw the Calvin grin.
It finally snowed up here. We have been on holiday at Smuggler’s Notch, a ski resort on Mt. Mansfield, Vermont, for days now – without a flake of snow. There is something ungainly about ski resorts before the snow falls. The trees are leafless and the hills shorn to bare rock along the long, windy trail runs. The landscape, if it could speak, would cry out for snow cover. Like a poodle, freshly clipped, with those fluffy balls of fur on its feet and tail, giving you that embarrassed look that says, “You think I like this, you think this is my idea of coiffure?” I get this same sensation of modesty from our mountain: “How about a little snow up here – I’m naked!”
And then it fell, during the night. It was just a light snow, maybe three inches, not enough to ski on, but a touch of humility for the mountain and just the right amount for a good snowball fight. Conor is eight years old, a good age for teaching a boy to make and throw snowballs. He is old enough to have a strong arm and reasonably good aim; young enough to still listen to me.
The first thing to know, I said, is that all snow is not created equal. Warm wet snow makes better snowballs than cold dry snow. Our snow was desert dry and not inclined to make snowballs at all. You need to take off your gloves and mold them with your bare hands, I told Conor. The warmth from your hands will partially melt the snow and then you can compress it into tight little spheres of ice. But it’s cold, he whined. Toughen up, kid, this is a snowball fight, not Monopoly in front of the fire. As he knelt down and worked on his snowball making technique, I peppered him with a few snowballs that I had already prepared and hid in my jacket. Rules number two and three in the sport of snowball fighting: keep an ample supply of snowballs in reserve and always watch your back.
Really, there wasn’t much more to teach him. Ultimately, snowball fighting comes down to throwing snowballs. Hitting your opponent while trying not to get hit yourself. It’s not the number of snowballs you throw or even the number of hits that you score. It’s that one great shot; the one you will talk about later – the one to beat. Maybe it’s a long shot that you think has zero chance when it leaves your arm and still, somehow, catches your adversary on his backside a good ten yards away. Or a snowball you throw so hard, that when it catches the other guy in the chest, it vaporizes to oxygen and hydrogen atoms. Or my personal favorite: the lob. Your opponent crouches behind a big rock, safely out of harms way – so he thinks. Quickly, calculating the trajectory in your head, you lob a snowball over the top of the rock. It disappears from sight. You wait and listen: one, two, whump…“hey!”
It was a great fight. Perhaps the best I’ve ever had. We threw snowballs until we were played out and frozen to the bone, the sun long gone for the day. There were some good hits scored on both sides. We were sated. On the elevator ride up to our condo, we recounted the grandeur. It was such a wonderful feeling, we were so connected, I very nearly forgot about the snowball hidden from sight in my left hand. I had intended on teaching my boy one last lesson: the element of surprise. But then I thought: nah. It’s been a good day. Enough is enough. I looked over at Conor and smiled. That’s when I saw that mischievous Calvin grin (again) and just a glimmer of the snowball in his hand. Thwap He unloaded on me. Caught me right in the neck, cold snow snaking its way down my shirt. The kid is good. Damn good. I’ll be watching my back from now on.
9:13:01 PM 
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