To the Editor:

I am writing in response to the letter Jen O’Connor and Eric Krans wrote in the Dec. 19 edition, inviting kids to sled on their Maple Avenue hill.

I can solemnly swear that your grandfather’s long, long wait to see if someone would ever break his downhill sleigh ride record on Warner’s Hill is over, and has been for a long time — at least, I can vouch for the fact that my cousin Stevie Hall has been bragging about that feat of his for at least 20 years.

He and his siblings, along with the Schilling kids who lived next door, and me and my siblings too, and plenty of other Maple Avenue kids, we all used to swarm up and down your hill in the early 1960s and even before that, and it was an annual highlight of the long snowy winter months.

We lived down on Euclid, so I only got to careen down your slope when we visited our cousins, who lived at 154 Maple, and I don’t think I was there the day Stevie made it all the way to the street.

But, in order to be sure, I just called him tonight (Dec. 23, 2024) to tell him about your letter to the editor “If Grandpa — not a hyperbolic man — said it was true, it was” and he proudly claimed again, like he has so many times before, that he too had managed to slide all that way on a single ride — admitting however, that it was a particularly icy day that day.

Maybe he didn’t actually break your grandfather’s record in measured feet and inches, but he did get as far as the traffic lanes!

Your yearly invitation to the neighborhood children brings back so many happy memories! They transport me and Stevie also, “back to when we were carefree boys.”

Granted, we didn’t go through a depression or a world war, but our memories are just as distant for us now, as they must have been for your grandpa. And just as cherished. Thanks for writing your invitation again.

Tom Capuano

Altamont