Yesterday's dusting of snow was well on the way to melting off when I walked to Twenty Tap to get a bite of lunch, and by the time I was schlepping the groceries home from Fresh Market it was only clinging, like some white and crystalline moss, in the shadows on the north side of trees and houses.
I know I've mentioned it before, but melting snow always leaves me with a vague and inchoate feeling of disappointment inside. It's an echo left over from when the sight was a signal to schoolchildren in Georgia that our little unplanned one- or two-day holiday was over and there would be school tomorrow.
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As a Georgia boy myself, it was always hard to accept the fact that despite the snow on the ground, we were still expectef to go out on missions in the sandbox.
That would have been nice. I don't think we ever had a snow day when I was in grade school. I know we had snow, just did not stop anything.
I tried to explain I went to school on a bus with snow chains on the tires to someone here in So KY.
I think they would have had an easier time believing I rode a sled pulled by Yetis.
Gerry
I've taken a business trip to Minneapolis in January.
I much prefer the way we do snow in the South. Even if the bread and milk crowd do give me major facepalm.
Growing up in northern Minnesota, a "snow day" was a rare and wondrous thing. It usually meant that the sky had dropped a couple of feet of snow overnight, and the plows were still catching up.
Then there were the days when we got out of school because it was -30 outside, and the heaters on the buses were simply inadequate. Those weren't quite as fun, though, since parents tended to not let us kids go out to play.
Gerry,
In the South, I think it's just cheaper to let things close down for a couple days a year than it is to buy snow gear that will rust away between uses. :)
I was raised in Michigan, where they close the schools when the bumpers on the buses can't push the snow out of the way.
Here in Iowa, if they see a snowflake the weather people take over the TV and the idiots empty the stores. Like our little snow Monday. It covered the ground and you couldn't find a parking spot at the local grocer. Tuesday, the snow was gone and the stock people at said grocer were trying to catch up.
In the 20 years I spent in Texas, I think it snowed 2 or 3 times. Ice was a pretty regular happening though. Ice storms really suck when they tear down miles of power lines. One of my favorite activities was taking my company wrecker out after the storm and pulling people out of the ditch. I cut the boss in and we cleaned up.
I was in HS during the winters of 76-77 and 77-78. We got out for days during the big blizzard of...77??? I think. Snow drifted to the tops of boxcars. My mom worked at a paper mill (Beckett Paper, may she rest in peace) and it's the only time they shut the paper machines down due to the weather. Paper mills run 365, even though the paper they make on Christmas day can't be sold.
Now a days...I think a lot of schools close because a) fear of lawsuits from a bus wreck and b) they've promised the unions so many days closed a year. Ok...b) might be stretching it, but I wouldn't be surprised. :-)
@LCB: I'm curious, why can't the paper made on Christmas day be sold?
I assume they make it anyway because it would cost more to shut down and restart the machines.
Only had this time when school actually closed due to snow http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/photo/chi-110131-snowstorm-1967-pictures,0,5150034.photogallery
When I was a kid in Western So.Dak. we didn't get to ride a bus. We walked to school. And school was open all winter even if the snow was fourteen feet deep, the wind was 85 MPH out of the north and the temp. was -114 F.
We liked it like that.
Gerry N.
As for the snow melting . .
Snow fall is a change, a miracle that overlays all around us. The pristine uniqueness of the quiet (or wind blown!) flakes accumulating into a blank that covers, and hides, the details and reminders of daily living can be a gift of magic and the beauty of a sunset.
Just as the most magical of suns set, as the brightest and deepest emotions peak and pass -- the snow melts, returning us not only to what came before, but often a darker, wettened vision that looks not washed, but bedraggled.
Think of the melting snow as but another passing moment of beauty and glory, another milestone in the path of a life of wonder and awe.
Blessed be!
Must have been north Georgia. The savannah area hasn't had a snow day since the mid 90's
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