One of my favorite childhood memories is sledding with my brother and sister at Giggly Hills near the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. We were just steps from home, right in the middle of the city, but when we dipped past the pedestrian path along River Road it felt like we were out in the wilds.
When I left my friend Jackie Briggs Martin's house in Mount Vernon, Iowa last week, I passed my two favorite signs and it took me right back to my Giggly Hills days. These signs are up year round at the base of a steep city street. In the winter the street is indeed closed so children can sled right down the middle of the street smack in the middle of town. Now that's a town I could live in. But since I can't actually live there, I imagine fictional Goodhue, Iowa, home of Tugs Button in The Luck of the Buttons, to be much like Mount Vernon. Can't wait to visit again.
