Snow Brick Castles in the Air

Many adults -- whether they are male or female, rich or poor, liberal or brainwashed by Fox News -- have at least one childhood disappointment that centers on a dream toy that turned out to be a nightmare bust.

Maybe we had seen on it on television ad infinitum or in the back pages of the lamest of the lame Harvey Comics. Perhaps, we first saw it in the hands of our alleged best friend who refused to let us borrow it no matter how many Chris Chambliss baseball cards (both Topps and Burger King, people) we offered the fink.

Regardless of how we first became aware of said item, we knew that this treasure, this most incredible invention ever, would end all those endless minutes of pre-pubescent boredom.

It would help us conquer nations! Realign socioeconomic structures! Purge lima beans from all soils and grocers' shelves!

But in reality, it usually turned out to be a handful of scrap plastic and bellyful of bitter disillusionment.

What was yours?

X-Ray specs?

Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle?

Mine? The Snow Brick Maker.

But through no fault of its own, its manufacturer or -- hard to imagine -- even its marketing department.

No. Mother Nature and Father Time flipped me the bird on this one.

I had begged and pleaded with my folks for one. For this magical, rectangular spectacular scoop of chimney red poly resin and wintertime pipe dreams, I had even fallen prostate on the scum-caked linoleum of the local Caldor, a feat that put one in harm's way from the tetanus-breeding edges of rusted shopping carriage wheels as well as mysterious substances far more disgusting than any known Cootie.

I must have it, I cried, for with it I would build structures that would claw at the sky, menace the roaring jets overhead and level the playing field between deity and 8-year-old.

All simply by packing the winter cloud cover's frosty spillover into a 9-by-4-by-4-inch box about one kajillion times over.

But first winter had to provide said frosty spillover.

Which, outside of some feathery dustings, it pretty much didn't do for the next three winters.

When significant flakes finally did fall, it was too late. I was in the hormonal throes of middle school -- the wasteland of American education and all our childhoods.

All these memories, such as they are, were conjured up for me by the many notables snows we've had in this young new year.  So strong were the feelings that I eventually gave in and drive down the local Target, which several years ago replaced the Caldor beast, and -- lo and behold -- the Snow Brick Maker they did sell.

For $2.99?

Seriously? That means it must have been all of 99 cents when I was a kid. Did I really have to make that big of a scene to get one of my parents to hand over a buck and change?

I purchased one, not in chimney red but in an ironic antifreeze green, and home I hastened, where I would offer it up as the ultimate gift between this father and his son -- my doppelganger filled with youthful optimism and high fructose corn syrups -- and together we would conspire on blueprints for a hard-packed architectural Utopia.

And I did.

And we did.

And, a few days later, snow -- it arrived.

Angels.Choirs. Electric Light Orchestras. Let's get it on!

I watched with paternal glee as my son lived my dream, block after block after block after block after block.

That was it.

Five blocks made in all.

That's when he decided that eating snow blocks was less work, and more enjoyable, than building with them.

I reckon happiness comes with its own individual design.