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First Snow, And I Miss It


The usual Flashback Friday feature will return next week.    


Friend and fellow blogger, Jeff Sutor yesterday talked of his relative disgust for the snow that fell on him and everyone else in the Midwest yesterday. He now has to stay inside and watch the putridness that is daytime Tee Vee. Of course, that implies that night time Tee Vee is different.

Mr. Sutor was able to acknowledge that it is January and all creatures have been spared any significant snow until now. To escape it for a month and a half is remarkable. But it now has arrived, and there it is.

For myself, I was glued to the Iowa Wesleyan College web cams salivating over one of the things I truly miss: snow and everything about it. I love impending blizzards, hot cocoa after a new snowfall, the smell of a roaring fire in the fireplace, the coziness and warmth of an electric blanket, the sight of swirling flakes around street lights...



...the sounds of snow blowers all along the street, and then joining them with yours, the sounds of crunch with each new step, the excitement from the kids on maybe having school called off... 



...the early morning rush to get the car shoveled for work, the house going into emergency mode with candles in case the power goes out,  helping the neighbor push his car off that pesky hump of snow in the road, the sound of wind blowing by (and into) windows...


...forcing Missy to go outside whether she wanted to or not, and watching her squat in a drift and dashing back in, and then shaking all the new flakes onto the wood floor...


...gloves that get so hard and icy you can snap it like balsa wood,  going out into the garage and seeing the old cars and motorcycles resting, awaiting April... 


...ducking into a warm bar for a cold beer and experiencing the 'we're all in this togetherness', the snow-melt you sprinkle on the steps and hope you'll remember to watch it when you use them next...


...the snowplows working early morning hours but you can hear the grating of the scoops and the yellow lights bouncing off the bedroom walls, thinking of my brother Mark who up to a couple years ago was one of those guys driving the snowplows, the brightness of the sun on the snow after the clouds have left, and driving so slow with your head out the window trying to see the center striping because everywhere there is a white-out.


Did the snowblower run out of gas?


Snow over, new morning.

But for me, I hear the incessant whirl of mowers every Tuesday, the chattering of kids at the pool, the swaying palms, and the everlasting one season, along with the brain-numbing idiocy of daytime Tee Vee.  Most people are down here trying to get away from the snow, but I'm like the salmon jumping upstream trying to get back home.  The grass is always greener, or rather, the snow is always whiter.

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