"JB Reed!" someone would yell out, and we'd put our books down in the snow and grab a handful of it. JB Reeds were semi-trucks that went up our street, and perfect targets for snowballs. Anywhere in the name “Reed” was considered a bullseye. The drivers sounded their air horns and then the sound of snowballs hitting the metal sides of the trailer commenced . Once the semi was out of range, a snowball fight would begin between us kids on the North side of the street and the kids on the South side of the street. Once satisfied and covered in snow, we'd gather up our books and run as fast as we could home. The kids on the South side of the street were bigger and made harder snowballs. Sometimes neighbors made us come back and clean up their sidewalks. They were the same neighbors who made us sing when it was trick-or-treating time at halloween.
In the winter there were the newspapers to deliver, more tossing to do. Some nights, loaded down with papers, you'd get hit by a snowball coming out of the dark - revenge for an earlier hit we made on someone. We delivered the first load of papers and returned home for the second load. Some people wanted their paper delivered to the back door, and it seemed to me they were the ones who never shoveled their walks or driveways. Walt’s Creek marked the end of the route, I would pause there sometimes to take in the scene of snow falling and the almost ink like water flowing around the rocks. Across the last corn field were the orange kitchen windows of the houses on Rural Street. Mr. Walt had planted his last crop of corn, he was now working at the "Q" in the wheel shop with my dad. His corn field would eventually become an extension of Edwards Street put down the middle and new homes built along it. More papers to deliver, but not by my brother or myself. The pumpkin patch would disappear and only empty barns would remain for the next twenty years.
My brother and I would meet up at the corner of Mountain and High St and walk home to our orange kitchen window.
