High Atop Manure Run

Having stalked a Teacher of the Year all morning, I spent a bit of my afternoon hunkered on the tundra of a Forsyth County hillside. Nothing odd there - until you consider it hasn't snowed around here in well over two weeks. That's where SuperDad Chris Guyer comes in. The same man who once held a certain Emmy winner enraptured with plummeting pumpkins, Guyer is once again jumpstarting seasons. This time he's making snow, using knowledge found on the internet and more than a few spare parts found in his rambling backyard. The result - a 100 foot swath of artificial snow, complete with a homemade slope constructed atop a rusting pick-up. It's enough to make neighborhood kids (and a certain cameramanthropologist) clamor at the gate: bundled-up, weighed down and ready to get their gravity on. It was a hillbilly hoot. In fact, the only downside was the occasional third grade projectile. That, and the horseshit I stepped in whenever I wandered off slope. Still, it was a marvelous way to while away an hour; sixty raucous minutes that would translate into oh, about ninety seconds of chuckle-inducing footage on the evening news. What can I say? Some days this gig is better than others. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to pick some more equestrian snow-manure out of my teeth...