I Love Snow

I am sitting in my office looking out at the beautiful snowfall. This old southern boy loves snow. And it makes sitting in an office almost bearable - just to look out at it.

Some of my best memories of childhood involve snow, sleet, and freezing rain, with the family huddled around the fireplace, my dear Irish Setter Clancey loopy with happiness, long walks, great sledding (Columbia is quite hilly), stupid games like standing under pine trees and running when we hear the limbs pop. And boy did they pop, like gun shots.

Then there was the "great" snowfall, in February, of 1972 I think, or maybe '73. That storm came up from south of Columbia. Orangeburg, SC got 22 inches. Columbia got 14-17 depending on here you were, and north in Greenville they had maybe one inch. It started snowing while we were in school. They let us out and my bus couldn't make it to y home, so we had to walk the last two miles. Got sort of lost on a golf course, but that was all part of the fun! I remember the huge enormous flakes, floating down so slowly like parachutes. There was no wind. The snow fell straight as an arrow. We had a little metal rail around our back porch. It was maybe an inch wide. So absent was any wind that an inch wide wall of snow built up on the rail over a foot high. It was incredible. The snow fell all day. When we woke up the next morning it was still snowing. We had never seen anything like it. It made us so excited we could hardly contain ourselves. I remember being out in the front yard with my dog. I would stretch my hands out to each side and just fall straight backwards - right into fluff. I would lie there, the surrounding wall of snow above my eyes to the right and left. It was so warm and so peaceful lying there, well, until Clancey pounced. He wasn't going to waste this opportunity lying around. He wanted to play.

South of us along I-95 in southern SC people were in grave danger. Helicopters flew in to rescue stranded motorists. I think the governor declared a state of emergency.

So, looking out my window, I remember how much I love snow. Maybe one's love if it is inversely proportional to how much one gets. I would guess the snow gets old week after week, month after month.

But for me it is all joy. Thank you God for the snow today!