Throwing snowballs at cars…

Today as I was clearing snow from my driveway, I thought back to my childhood because the snow was the ‘good packing’ kind of snow. I decided it was time to resurrect a story I wrote a while back about the car I hit with a snow ball when I was a kid that turned out to be a game changer for me…

When I was a kid and there was ‘good packing' snow, throwing snowballs at moving cars was just plain irresistible. I had a pretty good arm and hitting those big boats they made in the 60’s was not that difficult. The car that was the game changer for me was driven by Mr. Kuchta, who lived a block down from us on 178th and Exchange. When it happened, Mr. Kuchta was slowing down to turn onto Exchange, which gave him a chance to look me right in the eyes when my snowball hit his new Buick. That ‘look’ reached into my very soul and nearly caused me to become incontinent. Mr. Kuchta was unable to catch me that day, or so I thought at the time. I waited for him to come knocking on our door that day, but he never did. Mr. Kuchta turned out to be a very devious guy. He had three sons that were quite a bit older than me, so he had lots of experience dealing with a smart ass like me. After that day, each and every time our paths crossed Mr. Kuchta would give me that ‘look’ again and slam on his breaks. This caused me to flee like a felon and I probably ruined several pairs of pants scrambling over fences. This went on for several years, until I was a freshman in high school. That year Dr. Paplowski treated the Osgood-Schlatter in my knees by placing casts on my legs, one at a time. When Mr. Kuchta first saw me lumbering down the street with a cast on my leg, I must have looked like a lamb staked out on the Serengeti to him. He obviously knew his little game with me was over, and decided I had finally learned my lesson. Mr. Kuchta was not only devious but as it turned out, he was a very wise and kind man too….
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