2.12.2013

Local Man Purposely Buries Sleds in Backyard



It was a beautiful winter's day in Appleton, Wisconsin, this past Sunday, when Joleane Drasket got an email from her daughter's girl scout troop leader.  Troop 2428 was meeting at Reid Golf Course at 10am for sledding and hot coco.  Mrs. Drasket told her husband before he left for a three hour training ski at Iola Winter Park, nearly a one hour drive each way, that she was planning to take the girls sledding.  Mr. Drasket thought that sounded like a lovely idea.

Mr. Drasket on the ice rink before the emergency.  Note wooden toboggan in background.

Mrs. Drasket spent the morning hours, gayer than usual, excited at the prospect of an outing.  After kissing her husband good-bye, wishing him a safe trip, cooking pancakes for the children, and cleaning the dishes, she spend some time checking email and reviewing her blog stats.  At 9:55, she told the children to get into the van, they were going sledding!  Hooray, the children shouted, and buckled in without any arguments.

Where are the sleds? Mrs. Drasket asked, opening the back of the van to find it empty.  No one knew. She checked the front porch and the garage and the basement.  Finally, the eldest son remembered. "Daddy used them to reinforce the banks on the ice rink!" Mrs. Drasket turned to the rink and narrowed her eyes.  Oh that Mr. Drasket!  That was weeks ago when there was almost no snow.  Since then it had ice stormed and snowed and ice stormed and snowed over three feet deep.

Mrs. Drasket demanded her eldest show her where.  They dug quickly.  The car was running and low on gas.  They dug down to ice until the son realized he had the wrong place.  They tried again.  This time, they found the old wooden toboggan.  It was much longer than they remembered as they dug and dug.  Though Mrs. Drasket was wearing her finest snow pants, the exertion caused the elastic to slide up over her boot tops.  Snow was down her ankles, wetting her socks, as the two of them tugged at the toboggan that creaked under the strain.  The hooking front section was bound in by ice.  The son went to the garage to get the ice pick.




Oh you Mr. Drasket!  Mrs. Drasket held her fists to the sky as sweat rolled down her sides, her heavy down jacket exhaling the stink of goose.

The toboggan's rope, frozen straight, whacked Mrs. Drasket across the face as her son gave the final tug that released it from the snow bank.

Regardless, Mrs. Drasket, with the lingering guilt of being a negligent girl scout parent, saw her one opportunity to regain some respect in the troop leader's eyes.  Determined to arrive at the sledding hill prepared, she demanded they try to dig up one of the plastic sleds as well.  The big orange sled was under the buckthorn, her son said.  They dug and dug catching their jackets and gloves and ears on the bushes' thorns.  Finally, they got down to the tarp.  Where is it? Mrs. Drasket asked.  "Daddy wrapped it under the plastic rink liner," said her son.

Oh you Mr. Drasket!




Why? Mrs. Drasket wondered, Why would a man use the children's sleds to reinforce the banks?  And why would that same man wrap the sleds under the ice rink's plastic liner?

Mrs. Drasket spent the next half hour trying to dig up the orange sled to no avail.  The girls were screaming at her to hurry. Fine. She would just bring the wooden toboggan. But the wooden toboggan, she had forgotten, is too big to fit into the van. It would have to be tied to the roof.

Oh you Mr. Drasket!

That night, when Mr. Drasket got home from his ski trip, relaxed and energized from his day of recreating, Mrs. Drasket calmly recounted the story of why they were late to sledding, why they only brought one sled with a frozen rope that the girls used exactly once.  Mr. Drasket found nothing remarkable about the story.  It was an emergency, he shrugged.  Water was flooding out of the rink. "What else was I supposed to use?" he asked.

Mrs. Drasket could think of a thing or two.


The children's favorite green sled.  Unrecoverable until spring.





11 comments:

  1. If there is not a merit badge for "not throttling somebody" there should be and you should receive it. When you do, sew it on your sash right next to your "really good mother" and "great storyteller" badges.

    FYI - sleds are already on clearance at Target. Stock up and then hide them - in the neighbor's garage.

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  2. Did I say "you"? Of course my comments were meant for Mrs. Drasket. Please pass them along won't you? And wish her a happy Valentine's Day from me as well. Oh, and if you see Mr. Drasket you might remind him of the redemptive powers of a gift of good quality chocolate and/or three new sleds.

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    1. I'll be sure to pass on the messages to the Draskets. Especially the part about good quality chocolate.

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  3. Ah yes, sounds like the set-up in The Honest Man's side yard - where 2 frozen-in lawn chairs surround the precious new fire pit. THM forgets that this part of the yard floods (on its own) when snow starts to go through the melt>freeze>melt stage of winter, as it is now. At least he heeded Honey Bee's admonition (gentle suggestion taken - amazing!) to put the fire pit up on blocks lest it be inaccessible for an early season Friday night neighborhood gathering. If only Mr. Drasket had moved some of those hunks of the old (proximity - not age) neighbors' red oak to his new home. They would have made a much better rink perimeter securing device and the kids would have had the full afternoon to enjoy the sledding party. Tsk, Mr. Drasket!!

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  4. Mr. Drasket often speaks fondly of those red oak stumps. Maybe he should load them up into his new trailer next time he's in town. Yes, a trailer, on the van. Taking one right from THM's wife's playbook.

    Got skates?

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  5. Ms.Whimsy,

    Thank you for this excellent story about the Draskels of Appleton,WI. I read this story with great interest as I know the Draskels quite well. I did want to mention that after Mr.Draskel built this backyard ice rink the kids have spent alot of time outside this winter. I am told that as a result Mrs. Draskel has been freed from dozens of hours kid sitting while those Draskel rascals have been out skating. In fact the neighbors across the street say she almost never leaves her perch (in front of her computer on 2nd floor) while the kids are out skating.

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  6. Oh, Joanna, this one made me laugh. The details you include in your story telling are wonderful. And I like the photos peppered in. Also, I notice that Andrew--in his comment above--insists on calling himself Draskel instead of Drasket; what's up with that?

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    1. Joy - From the perspective of former neighbor, I was never sure if it was the slurring tongue caused by a few Friday night Leinies or the fact that the Witness Protection Program stipend was coming to an end, but Mr. Drasket often referred to himself as "Draskel". Since the latter rhymes with "rascal", it made it easier for for the rest of us to remember him. I once even had a letter incorrectly delivered by the USPS (their problem, not ours - thus, one of the many reasons for their decline, me thinks) to Draskel the Rascal and I knew RIGHT WHERE TO FORWARD IT!!

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  7. Alas, it is true that I must credit Mr. Drasket, not just with the burying of the children's sleds, but with creation and maintenance of the ice rink which has been undoubtedly the best thing to happen to us this winter. Perhaps tonight in celebration, we will go for a skate under the moonlight, until we get so dizzy with our love for each other that we fall and crack our heads on the ice.

    Lovingly,

    Mrs. Drasket

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  8. Ah yes, nothing says LOVE like a trip to the ER for a Valentine's Day CT scan!

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  9. Drasket, Rascet, whaever.....these people are what makes America's heartland great. And what else might be buried under a winter's worth of snow? In Washington DC teeny crocuses are poking up their tiny heads. They haven't seen enough snow to freeze them hard. A red headed wood pecker hopped up and around a bare tree. Two hawks screeched out of sight. A nation's capitol that doesn't have a real winter deserves year long gridlock. Grandpa John

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