With the possibility of snow in the forecast, the kid in me is hoping we’ll see some this weekend, even though the old guy I’ve become doesn’t deal with the cold like I once did.
Still, I love watching the snow fall, and I marvel at the quiet beauty of a snow-covered landscape.
I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I first saw snow, but I can recall most everything else about it.
Back in the day, the weather forecasters usually were as surprised as we were to wake up and see snow on a winter morning.
Some time in the early to mid-1960s, my brother Rob and I were spending the night with my grandparents, Jim and Sarah Minter, the first time either of us saw snow. (There were no thoughts of snow when we turned in that night.)
MaMa and Pop lived in the white house just off Highway 92 on Hill’s Bridge Road. Rob owns it now. The brick house between the white frame house and 92 wasn’t there at that time.
Snow in front of MaMa & Pop Minter’s house (now Rob’s house) in January 2014
My grandparents’ house, like most houses around here at that time, didn’t have central heat. There were small propane heaters in the bathroom and kitchen and seldom-used gas logs in the living room. Most of the heat came from the coal being burned in a pot-bellied, U.S. Army surplus stove in the main bedroom.
The other bedroom, known as the “cold room,” had no heat at all. When we slept in the cold room in the wintertime, it took a while to get warm after we climbed under the covers. If you moved your legs or arms very far during the night, the cold sheets would quickly get your attention.
Sometime that night my grandfather woke us up and took us out on the front porch. There was a steady snow falling. One of the few yard lights around Inman at that time was on south side of Paul Lamb’s Store, just across 92 from my grandparents’ house. The light allowed us to see just how hard the snow was falling.
At some point we saw the headlights of a vehicle coming south on 92. It was a pickup truck, and the driver was proceeding slowly as the blanket of snow made it hard to determine exactly where the roadway was. Adding to the driver’s challenge was the lack of illumination provided by the truck’s six-volt headlights, which looked dim and yellow in comparison to the white of the snow. (Still today, I wonder who might have been driving that truck and where it was headed.)
Pictured: Steph, Jim, Rick & Abigail after snowfall on January 31, 2014.
Finally we were convinced to get back in the bed, and the next morning we went out and played in the snow. My grandmother made snow ice cream using a big helping of snow mixed with milk, sugar and vanilla extract. It was delicious.
The whole experience, even though it only lasted a couple of days, was magical.
I hope it’s the same for every kid when they see
snow for the first time.