Still Not Down from a Snow High

OUCH! ROBERTA! Your snowball got me! COLD!
Watch out, I might just retaliate with a yet to be chosen missile from Oz!

Roger

OK then, I won't eat my heart out .... But I thought it'd be hard enough getting around on foot in snow (say nothing of driving a car! ) but how does one negotiate the after-sludge?

msolga:

About that sludge: Yes, there is plenty of it when a good snow storm melts--we get a lot of it here in the Southwest, where the snow doesn't stay on the ground for long--we wear high boots, hope for deep sewers, and wash our cars and dryclean our coats more frequently.

The road mess is terrible--a combination of very dirty melting snow, gasoline, sand, salt, etc., all splashing up all over the car, especially on the highway. We try to shovel our sidewalks off good so we don't have to deal with the wet, ugly stuff more than necessary, at least at home. We're sorta like Old McDonald dealing with a barnyard full of dodo, only this doesn't smell as bad....and regardless of the inconveniences, I always look forward to that first snowfall, and the lovely white vistas that snow brings.

I was brought up in a midwestern state, and I miss snow at Christmas if I am in the tropics or a more temperate zone. Maybe baby diapers would be a better analogy than Old McDonald--the changing is really PU, you know, but you don't remember it too long, because the baby is so darn cute!

estrella

Sort of from the sublime to the ridiculous & yucky!
And do you ever have to shovel your way out of the house, after a big snow fall? Like we see in the movies?

msolga:

Yes, that can occur, probably just did in North Carolina, where thousands of people were without power for several hours because of the tremendous snow storm that came in, I think it was Wednesday.

I was brought up in the midwest United States on the coast of the Great Lakes, and I can remember one winter when I lived in one small town and worked in another that was about 20 miles away--

In the early afternoon, the snow began to fall, falling thicker and faster, thicker and faster... Our office manager said--"You'd better hightail it for home, it looks like it's turning into a blizzard," so those who didn't want to drive their cars back to my town piled into my car with me (looked like one of those how-many-can-squeeze-in? parties!) The snow was coming down so rapidly and the temperature was lowering so quickly that we had to stop three or four times while one of the men got out and cleaned off my windshield wipers, which simply iced up, and cleaned the windshield. We were driving on the highway at speeds of perhaps 10-15, no more than 20 miles an hour.

When we arrived at our hometown, I couldn't drive each person home, because the roads were so filled with snow that it would have been impossible to drive down the side roads. Only the main highway had been plowed, and the plow coming through had piled up snow across the intersections. So my people jumped out at their corners, said goodby and headed into the storm on foot. By this time, with the heavy snowfall, and the plowing, the banks on either side of the highway were as high as or higher than my car. There was no way I could get my car down our little side road, so I just gassed it and drove it into a snowbank near the corner of our road.

It was two days later, when things had started returning to normal, that I finally shoveled myself out and had wheels again. Everyone drove around for awhile with little flags at the tops of their car antennae so that people could see them coming.

But that kind of storm doesn't happen every day. Usually snow is much more manageable.

Hey Roberta--I've loved reading all the great posts about snow. No time now, but I'll be back to put in my two cents. This past snow was the kind I really love because it is powder and easy to plow and wonderful to play in.
Later,
d

Roberta
Great thread!

Sozobe
Well said. I crave all the seasons too.

Joan Dark
Devil's Hill...what a picture. It sounds wonderful

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=30764#30764

Wow, the blizzard of '78 hit massachusetts hard. We had several feet of snow, can't remember how many. The plows came through and piled up snow banks along the roads. I was 10, the banks seemed likely to be about 6' tall. But, when you're little, how can you judge? We climbed up and walked along them, occasionally one of use would fall into the snow bank and tunnel out. It became a game. We riddled the banks with tunnels and 'igloos'. We wandered down to the nearby strip mall and found cars' antenna sticking up through the snow, it was high enough to otherwise cover the cars completely. The plows had come to clear the parking lot there and the snow piles were monsterous! We sledded down them. That was, by far, the worst snow storm I've lived through.

About feelings to do with snow. The quiteness of a fresh snowfall. The muffle, the slowed pace of life. There's a sense of being alone in a cozy white space. I have fond memories of hot chocolate, fireplace silliness (ever stand with your back to the fire for a minute and then lay down?), family getting together for all-day cross-country ski treks. There is always the coming-in at the end of the cold play.

"Silent Snow--Secret Snow" eerie short story, but I have forgotten who wrote it...incidentally, I don't miss snow one tiny...little bit.....

Letty- Oooh- I loved that story. It was in a compilation of short stories which described mental illnesses in literature. I'm going to see if I can find something about it!

Letty- Check this out:


Link to Silent Snow, Secret Snow

Phoenix, It may be Conrad Aiken...not sure

Letty- It is. click on my link!It appears that the story may be in books that are out of print, but I'm going to keep looking. It is such a great story.

Yes! Letty and Phoenix, I loved that story too!! And didn't it have the perfect description of a morning when snow has fallen?

I read it when I was a girl at home, my father had the book. After my parents moved to Florida, when I was visiting, I looked for that book, to re-read. Gone.(Guess they thought it too depressing.)


MsOlga, YES, we get snowed into our houses! I have (fortunately) a porch at my front door. But the back door hasn't even a step down. Very easy to get snowed shut.And very frustrating for (trying to) letting the dog out!

Little K, yes, the blizard of '78 hit hard here too.It was quite fantastic, the height of the snow-piles. Frightening , actually. Literal mountains. The city of Phildadelphia trucked a lot of THEIR snow out here-had to get rid of it!Many large parking lots were completely non-functional-simply huge ice-mountains, barren wastelands. Eerie.
There was one street-side "mountain" on route 1. A then neighbor, and friend, a Viet Nam vet who was having troubles, commited suicide by driving into it at 100 MPH.
The blizzard of '78 was a case of a little too much snow!

Joanne, Had to be a snow machine. No other possible explanation.

Estrella, You paint a lovely picture. Icicle noses. I like that.

Ossobuco, You had snow in LA? Must have been a shock to your system.

Olga, Slush is yucky. No point in denying it. Street corners are like freezing, filthy pools of guck. Sewage drains are clogged. Slush up past the top of your boots. I love the snow. BTW, I was in New England one year--Vermont--after a big storm. People weren't just shoveling their walkways and driveways. They were shoveling their roofs. I learned that the weight of all that snow could cause some damage. Still it was a strange sight to see people on their roofs with shovels.

Diane, Did you play in the snow? How could you not?

JJorge, I'm glad you like the thread. Thank you for the link to your poem. It is touching and true.

LittleK, Walking on the snowbanks. Tres fun. And falling in and tunneling out. Also tres fun. You mention coming inside after having been out playing in the cold. I think that's part of the wonderful memories of snow. The inside afterwards. My mother would give me a hot chocolate. She let me put my frozen fingers on her midriff under her blouse to warm me up. And my father would rub my icy feet. Cold and warm snow memories.

Letty, You don't miss snow? Not even looking at it from your toasty warm living room window? I guess that's why we've got a north and a south, a hot and a cold.

Phoenix, I really enjoyed reading your link on "Silent Snow, Secret Snow."

estrella- I am sorry that I could not find the entire story. It is very powerful.

Still not down from a snow high
Ah, such memories evoked by all of your wonderful words. I can not improve upon them, or add much that hasn't already been touched upon. Growing up in the snowbelt outside of Syracuse, NY, I have many such memories. Then down to about 70 miles north of NYC, when in 1996, the monster blizzard of the century caused drifts hard to all of my doors and the neighbors had to dig me out. My 'significant other' said that's enough, I've had it, we're outta here, and we moved to South Carolina. There is the occasional snowfall here, and ice storms are frequent transient visitors - but the aftereffects are generally gone within 24 hours or so. So, unfortunately, are electricity and heat gone for periods of time. Not so far south that I don't get to enjoy the changing of the seasons, although summer is a bit longer than I would like - stealing precious days from both spring and fall.

Joan, A little too much snow, indeed. What a resourceful approach to suicide. I wonder what he would have done if it hadn't snowed.

Sumac, I'm glad to see you here. So that's how you ended up in NC? Escaping the snow.

Yup, Roberta, but it is in SC (more's the pity). Kara is in NC.