Several years ago, I had some friends who were Yankees (and they were pretty darn proud of it). He was from northern Maine and she was from New Hampshire. You really don't get much more Yankee than that. This was their first winter in Texas.

On a particularly cold day, I mentioned that their son needed a toboggan. I got the strangest look from the couple. Since we had no snow on the ground they thought I had lost my mind. They asked me why he needed a toboggan. I told them "to keep his head warm, of course." The couple roared with laughter. That was the first time I realized that everyone in the world didn't call a knit cap a toboggan. To them, a toboggan was a traditional wooden sled. No wonder they wanted to know why I thought their son needed one! And, no wonder they found it so funny that I thought one would keep his head warm.

They honestly thought I had lost my mind. Here I was, nearly 40 years old, and I had been calling knit caps toboggans all my life. Of course, they were the same age and had always known sleds as toboggans.

It's not that I didn't know a certain type of sled was sometimes called a toboggan, we just don't have them in Texas. They, on the other hand, couldn't fathom a hat being called a toboggan.