Wednesday, February 10, 2010

A Little Snow Perspective

I remember the snow when I was in first grade. It was the late 70's, and we lived in Buffalo Grove, Illinois (outside Chicago.) We got walloped with snow storm after snow storm.

I loved it.

There was so much snow that the city had to put red stakes in the snowbanks to show where the stop signs were. We walked to school on top of those snowbanks, looking down at passing cars.

After school, the neighborhood kids tunneled through the snow like eskimo squirrels. My dad helped us to make a slide in front of our house by scooting us down the snowbank on our snow-panted bottoms and then pouring a bucket or two of water down the indentation made by our rear ends. It was a fast slide.

We had snowball fights for the ages. Our snow forts were as impregnable as the Chateau d'If -- for no other reason than the eleven feet of standing snow on the ground.

What's amazing about my memories is that I don't remember people complaining about the snow. All I remember is consuming lots and lots of hot cocoa and Campbell's soup that winter.

That's why I laugh when I hear of the Federal Government shutting down because of a little snow. Granted, two feet of snow may seem like an awful lot... But, what do you expect when you elect a Midwesterner President of the United States? He was bound to bring a little weather in tow.

Here in the flatlands, we're enjoying our second day off from school this week. The boys are outside sledding with friends in the backyard. It's a well-earned bit of fun for them; they spent a half-hour this morning shoveling our front walk.

When they came inside after their "hard work", it was fun to hear them chatter to each other about how cold it was and how deep the snow was. "There's a TON of snow out there," my first-grader stated gravely as if I would be consumed by the blizzard were I to step foot outside.

As they settled in for their warm drinks, I tiptoed out with my ruler.

Six inches.

Still, they've fashioned some pretty swell snow forts out of that six inches...

But I wonder about my own recollections, now. And I wonder about my niece and nephew in Maryland imagining their way through 28 inches of the white stuff... What stories will they be able to tell?

- Midwest Mom

6 comments:

  1. I think I have pictures of that blizzard. Or a similar one here in the Northeast. So yeah, everyone else, chillax. :)

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  2. These are memorable moments--always best finished off with hot chocolate;)

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  3. Funny. I talked to my brother in Maryland, and he updated his snow total to 56" in the last week. So, yeah... that's a little bit more than 6 inches. :)

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  4. I remember those kinds of winters when I was a kid. It's been years since we had a real winter like those. For years I have been telling my kids about snow days, drifts that were higher than the cars and the forts we built. He didn't believe me until this year. He still hasn't had a snow day but he is beginning to understand what a real midwestern winter is all about.

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  5. I really don't know how I would manage driving in the snow. I live ion southern California where people freak out when it rains on the freeways. My son is in Michigan, and never complains about the weather there, which surprises me, after 17 years in California and one in Belize.

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  6. All of this snow~ it is one for the record books. Not only in the Mid-West, but look at Dallas, Texas. From snow forts, to snow ball fights, and sledding, it's all been happening around here this winter. BUT, I am so ready for spring, tired of snow days, and am now on a hunt for that first robin. Spring has got to be out there somewhere.

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