A Metal Saucer

 At my final show last year, I sold a metal saucer fashioned into a holiday front door decoration (wreath).

As it hung on display I was surprised at how many people commented on it, many asking what it was. When I told them and pointed out the little cotton-ribbed handles on the sides, there was always a knowing “I see” from each of them.

Before my family moved to Connecticut we lived for a time in St. Louis on the edge of a golf course. In our garage there hung three wooden sleds of different sizes, and three identical metal saucers. On snowy days my brothers and I would pull one device or the other, depending on the conditions, to hole #5, the one with the steepest hill. As we walked, we fell in step with other kids from the neighborhood doing the same thing.

We brought the saucers on the days following the snowfall, when the sun had had a chance to melt the snow just a little and it would be packed down nice and hard. Being the oldest and a girl I let my brothers go first as they could care less about peril. When I realized the only place to land was the bottom of the hill and not a pile of rocks or over a cliff, I let the person behind me give me a push. I grabbed those cotton straps and careened down that fairway, picking up speed towards the middle. There was nothing about steering in the design of those things. It was both terrifying and a little disappointing to get to the bottom, so much so that I high-tailed it back up the hill to get in line again.

I don’t know when they stopped making those metal saucers, nor why. Was it a safety reason, perhaps? Or an economical one? I just know that when I saw the one I made into the door decoration, I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

Funny how just living our regular life eventually shows up in our adult one.