1/31/11
This evening’s biting wind chill makes the mid-20’s temperature feel like the teens.
Homes take on the appearance of forts as a war rages in from the Plains. Native northerners show no signs of concern. They dare to live here in winter, their town snowplows on the ready.
They don’t “batten down the hatches” like their southern counterparts who rush to acquire shovels, salt, and melting solvents. No, they laugh in the face of winter.
Resting beneath flannel and wool blankets with visions of snowshoes and cross-country skis dancing in their heads, they sleep in cold rooms, with only the tip of a nose peeking above the quilts and comforters.
They have waited for the blizzards that have scurried off to the east coast for the last two years, snowfalls that threaten the lives of the frail and strengthen the backs of the young.
Children have dreamt of snow days, while adults have felt mixed emotions of joy and dread associated with the magic and beauty of an excessive smattering of heavenly white precipitation.
Snow means employment and overtime, plowing, shoveling, and snowblowing, early in the morning, and later in the day. Taking care of your driveway, parking place, and walkways, and those of your elderly neighbor, as well as the neighbor who is out of town, or home with the flu.
Snowfall is an experience that brings people in the same neighborhood closer together, while distancing others. It makes everyone a child for a day or two.
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