It was the dawning of an Ice Age,

The Winter of 1963,

An eerie silence, an uneasy calm,

We were all cut adrift on Malton Road,

No cars were moving in, or out.

We clapped our hands to keep them warm

And wore our coats inside the house.

 

I fashioned a path through the frozen snow,

A fearless youngster, with nerves of steel,

Digging on, with snow above my head,

Wielding a spade, last used on a beach!

The snow blizzards blew! I was undeterred!

The huskies had fled, I was beyond their reach!

No search parties came, I was on my own,

In the coldest Winter I had ever known,

Or would ever know.

 

An Amundsen, only five years old,

an intrepid explorer, defying the cold!

Forging a Northwest Passage through to Nana’s,

Four doors down, on Malton Road.

 

When the snow falls, now, around our way,

And my grandson shouts, “It’s snowing! Hooray!”

I quietly smile, as I’m tempted to say,

“Call this SNOW?  Powdery flakes are NOTHING!

You should have been digging, alongside me,

Clearing out Rillington’s Northwest Passage

In the Winter of '63…"