If you are like me you are thinking…”this weather reminds me of winters when I was little”. Seriously, the last big snows that I remember well (besides the blizzard of 93) occurred when I was a little girl. I remember one year it snowed a lot around Thanksgiving. I remember walking down to my grandpa’s house and the snow came over my boots. There were many other snowy winters throughout those childhood years. The memories can run wild through my mind when I look at the snow falling through adult eyes. We could not sled down the road because it would make it slick as glass my daddy would say. We would argue because the road was the perfect place to sled. It had all the right amount of hills and curves. We never won and did not understand why….silly us. We ended up sledding or tubing in the pasture. That was lots of fun. There was always snowman building and then pictures. Mom had to get pictures of us posing with our creations. You know you all still do that today…I have seen pictures on facebook. I am glad some things never change. There was always good comfort food cooking. I specifically remember a pot of pintos on the wood stove…they tasted better that way. We kids thought it was the best thing ever to have snow days. I also remember my daddy pacing the floor saying lots of not so nice words about the weather and the mountains. He worked construction, bulldozer, dump truck ….and if he didn’t work the bills didn’t get paid. Now as an adult I can clearly see why he hated the winter in Western NC. When you have a family to feed, your idea of fun shifts.
I am grateful that my daddy no longer has to pace the floor to worry about feeding his family or paying the bills (even though he probably still does). I am grateful that Gregg and I have jobs that do not require us to risk our lives to go to work on snow and ice days. I do wish however, that my kids could feel the sheer joy that snow brought to me, my sister, and brother so long ago ..don’t misunderstand me, my kids do love the snow but they have so many other things to entertain them than we did. It is just different…..
