I can vividly remember days when the street in front of our house (on Bolduc Lane, in Taftville, CT) would be unplowed for a couple of days at a time. My friends and I could make snowmen, forts and have great snowball fights out there, without fear of a city or private plow wrecking everything. The priority was the highway near us, which before the Connecticut Turnpike was opened, was one of the major routes to Rhode Island. This was especially true for larger trucks, so it was pretty well maintained.
Across the highway and up the hill was a large, sandbank, sometimes used by the city for the roads, which was a great place for sledding. It was also the perfect place during the rest of the year to play cowboys & indians or 'war' with one side up top and the other trying to get up with out being 'shot'. I'm sure that is now all so non-politically correct and offensive, but it certainly never seemed that way to us. Small towns like Taftville, were pretty white and generally made up of families that had been there for generations.
Anyway, while I certainly don't miss the days of having to shovel the sidewalk in front of Donna's mom house or digging out our cars in Brooklyn & West Haven, it does still make me nostalgic.
