Bob and former Enterprise editor Elizabeth Izzo are seen at the 2024 Blue Buns Wheel-a-Palooza. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

If you talk to anyone who grew up here in the ’50s and ’60s, there are two things they’ll all agree on.

One is we had great childhoods, though maybe not in material terms. Salaries were hardly sultanic and we didn’t have all the bling and options of city and suburban kids. For example, they had their choice of roller rinks, amusement parks, movie theaters, rock and roll shows, stores, ice cream shops, after school hangouts, and on and on. We didn’t.

But we had all we wanted, and it was within walking distance. We had the Pontiac Theater, with the big screen; the world’s best ice cream parlor, the Altamont; Bernies restaurant, which after school was filled to the rafters with kids, noise and cigarette smoke. We also had our own weekend “nightclub,” The Teen Canteen, in the town hall.

And beyond those things, we had stuff city kids could only dream of, if they could even imagine them in the first place. We had woods, lakes and mountains galore, ours for the taking. And even better, from single digits on, almost all of us were given the freedom to wander the town and the wilds whenever we wanted … as long as we came home for dinner.

The other thing my fellow geriatrics not only agree on, but are all too eager and delighted to tell anyone who’ll listen (or anyone who’ll PRETEND to listen): Today’s winters can’t hold a thermometer (or pluviometer or even an anemometer) to the ones we slogged through. This isn’t an idle boast either. The old winters had more sub-zero days and more snow. And even if we now have as many windy days, those colder days raised a lot more hell with tender psyches and dupas (especially the psyches and dupas of kids who walked to and from school and everywhere else — which we all did). My mother was strict, tough not sadistic, but if my bro and I had asked for a ride to school on a 20 below morning, she’d’ve thought herself a failure, having raised a couple of panty waists.

But my musings about “the snows of yesteryear” aside, I’ll grant that while this winter may not turn out as brutal as the old ones, it’s giving it one helluva run for its money.

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Forget the rose-colored goggles

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And now I’ll tell you something we have that far outclasses the old winters, and that’s today’s Winter Carnivals vs. the old ones.

Then again, it’s a given, based on the length of today’s Carnivals and the number of activities.

The old Carnivals began on Thursday night with the coronation, and ended that Sunday night with the fireworks, so that’s 3 1/2 days. Today’s Carnivals are not only three times longer, but offer a dizzying array of things to do.

The features of the old Carnivals were the coronation, the Rotary Drag Show, the parade and the fireworks. There were other things, of course, like speed skating races on the Petrova rink (no Civic Center then, kids), which with those temps and a wind that seemed to be whipping in directly from Frobisher Bay, made spectators seem less like sports fans, and more like survivors of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.

There were also The White Stag ski races, and receptions that held no interest for kids.

But there was one main feature of the old Carnivals that’s a shadow of its former self — drinking. Yeah, sure, people still go out and drink, but not in the numbers and not to the extent they did back in The Glory Days.

For one thing, the culture has changed. Drinking used to be a major facet of American life: Historically, people drank more and more often in the past. Plus, drinking to excess wasn’t frowned on like it is today. There were comedians who made lifelong careers of a drunk act; DWI was rarely enforced, and was hardly punished if it was. I’d bet most young people have never heard anyone utter that classic boozer’s last call rallying cry: “Have one for the road.” Matter of fact, I’m sure lots of young peeps have no idea what it even means.

Another reason today’s Carnivals see so much less drinking is a numbers game: The town had 30% more people when I was young, and it was an 18 state. Beyond that, in 1970 we hosted — and boasted — 40 bars. And given the Baby Boom, Paul Smith’s College and NCCC, and the drinking culture, all the bars did a boom business — especially during Carnival.

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But farewell to all that … and welcome to a whole new day!

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Today, the term I’d use for Winter Carnival is “family friendly.” There are a slew of events for everyone, from toddler to creaker. There are so many, I won’t even try to highlight ’em. Besides, that’d be doing your work for you: You wanna find out what’s going on, check the Winter Carnival schedule. But just to give you a hint of how many choices we have: When I went to schedule the Chucklehead Hoedown last year, there was only one night available, and there were three other Carnival activities scheduled AT THAT HOUR!

Now let me give you a guided tour of the folks behind the curtain of Winter Carnival, Carnival’s brain trust, as it were — the Winter Carnival committees.

There are 37 — count ’em 37! — Carnival committees. Of course, in order to have as many things going on, we NEED that many committees. But the thing that distinguishes Winter Carnival committees from every other one I’ve had the dubious pleasure of being on is each committee is made up of one person. Yep, you read that right — all the committees have a chairperson, and that’s it.

I found this out when I decided I wanted to see if Carnival could add a new event — a bike ride around town, with the riders clad in bathing suits. I came up with a name, the Blue Buns Wheel-a-Palooza. It’d start at the Ice Palace and the riders would do one lap around town. But beyond that, had no idea how it could be an event, how to organize and publicize it, or how to anything-ize anything. So I asked She Who Must Be Obeyed, the Winter Carnival stalwart, and first class yenta herself — my dear pal Liz Scammel Murry.

Liz told me to show up at the next Carnival meeting and present my idea, which I did. Frankly, I was pretty nervous about it, because it was such a whack-job idea, I figured it’d be automatically rejected. But as I was telling the peeps my idea, I saw everyone was smiling and nodding their heads, and it dawned on me: Those folks were as hometown happily-nuts as me. After I got done with my spiel, Jeff Branch, who chaired the whole megilla, said only three words, and I quote: “OK, it’s yours.” And that was it.

And therein lies both the beauty and the effectiveness of the one-person committees: You want to be in charge of an event, you are. Period. No one looks over your shoulder, no one bugs you, no one asks for in-depth progress reports or anything else. If you want your event to succeed, it’s up to you to do it. That’s Step One. Step Two is getting peeps to help you. You can get some of the other Carnival folks to help, but keep in mind, they’re going pedal-to-the-metal with their own events, so you can’t impose on them. For example, with the Blue Buns, I asked Liz if she’d help with registration, and she said yes. Then she recruited her posse to help, which they did (two of whom, Barb Martin and Kelly Morgan, have committees of their own. The third, Patti Sauvie, while not a chairperson, helps in all sorts of Carnival events).

I said I’d take you behind the scenes of Carnival planning, but honestly, there’s not a lot to see. Dig this: At the meeting of all the committees (which now take place each Tuesday night, if you’d like to pop in and witness the “action” first-hand) here’s what happens: Jeff calls the meeting to order, asks if there’s a motion to approve the previous meetings minutes. It automatically passes, even though I doubt anyone remembers or cares about what they are. We have our own work to do, and no time retrospective musings.

Then he calls on each committee chair to give their report, which they do. And almost every one of their reports is the same — word-for-word! How is that possible, you wonder? Simple. Without fail, everyone says what should be the Official Winter Carnival motto: “It’ll happen.” That’s it, and that’s all there is TO it. The simple reality is everyone there is too busy making their event succeed to spend any time jawing about it. And this is especially true because everyone is success-oriented, and has neither the time nor inclination to listen to someone else’s trip.

Of course we socialize a bit before and after the meeting, and we’ll kid each other a bit during it, but mostly we’re there to take care of business. And unless you’ve been living here in a shoebox, you know we do.

While the meetings are unremarkable, their results are the exact opposite: Ten days of more fun and frolic than any 10 people can process, and almost all of it is free.

Maybe most remarkable of all, you won’t hear any of the committee peeps either complain about their burden or brag about their successes, even though they have plenty of each. And if that’s not the perfect definition of A Labor of Love, I don’t know what is.