Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Flashback Friday

Class, Or Lack Thereof The Dwight Vice gravestone in Oquawka, Illinois. I bring this old chestnut out every so often just to remind me that class is classless.  Dwight Vice was killed in his home near Oquawka in 2001.  It was one of those things that can generate crime:  two guys thought Dwight had a lot of money stashed at home because of his pot-selling sideline to supplement his fishing job.   Not really one of those big drug deals gone-bad things.  Marijuana was, according to the trial, about the only stuff Dwight sold.   But these two guys barge into the house and killed Dwight and attempted to kill his 11 year old kid, Darryl, before they took off with what money they could find.   His son, now 23, was stabbed in the back and left for dead.  He survived and is wheelchair bound and has undergone several surgeries to repair his wounds.  He will be paralyzed for life.   None of this is pleasant.  Reading the facts of the murder and attempted murder are most unpleasant

Summer Swim

It's Monday and the start of another work week.  Except for me.  I have the week off because the parents of my daycare charges are taking the week off, too. This is one of those wordless posts I love on Mondays so I can put my laziness in full view of loyal readers.  These pics need no words.  Why muddy the waters?   They were taken at the pool at Sinkhole Estates aka Death Valley.  The nice thing about this pool is it is heated in winter.  If one must find positives in one's situation, I suppose that is one.  But, please, no more.   

Florida Air Museum - Part 3

Welcome back to a pretty neat tour of the Florida Air Museum in Lakeland Florida.  There's a lot to see and a couple of the old Geezer Gold Wing guys are already sitting down instead of walking around looking at the exhibits. That's John who is wore out and making a call to his wife.  In all honesty, John was pretty well bushed before the ride.  He told me his daughter's family was down from one of the Carolina's with the grand kids and he must have played with them too much.   He's about to take off on his own and head for home, but he's going to miss a couple of neat things out on Hangar A.   But, before we walk over there, we have lots yet to see here.  If you saw The Aviator with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Howard Hughes, you'll remember that he went up in a plane during the filming of one of his movies to prove a point about flying.  He crashed trying to execute a roll and this is a picture of the plane he crashed.  Note the propeller