My Favorite Sledding Hill Is Long Gone…Replaced by Doctors

Earlier this week, I shined the spotlight on Chautauqua Hill and it's popularity, for decades, as THE sledding destination in Owensboro.

And it's earned its reputation, time and again. But when I was a kid, it wasn't the only place where sledding was at its finest. It's just that at Chautauqua, it's easy to park. The hill I'm talking about was very near my childhood home on Sunrise Drive and is no longer there.

I don't how many times us kids, sleds or garbage can lids or whatever in hand, would trudge up to the top of the hill that used to be next to Rose Hill Cemetery and spend a whole snowy afternoon racing to the bottom, where a fence line provided a soft place to land...if you landed on the right part of the fence line, that is.

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But, yeah, that's where it was. Great big hill. With humps in it for extra sledding oomph, as if a theme park designer had put in his or her two cents worth. Of course, that resulted in many a tumble OFF the sled.

And on the other end of the hill was a big spooky old abandoned house that we just KNEW was haunted, only because it looked like it should have been.

So much fun. It's funny, we never cared how cold it was or how frozen our jeans would get. We just needed to get to that hill.

Of course, that hill is gone now. Long gone, and replaced by a huge medical complex that's been there for years. You know the one. It's over on New Hartford Road across from Owensboro Christian Church

Boy, do the memories ever come flooding back in weather like this. And, honestly, I'm not above finding a sled and seeing if I still "got it."