Let it snow

The blizzard in the North East has brought back many memories.  Like the time in my senior year of high school that the photographer was extremely slow in bringing our pictures. Several of us took the bus to Carnegie to get our pictures.  And got stranded.  We stood for hours, waiting for the bus to take us back home, but the buses had stopped running.  Fortunately, the train was still running.  We were able to get home, but by the time I approached the house, my feet were numb.
Sneakers in snow is not a good choice.

I remember the big snowstorm in Denver on my son's birthday.  The sun was coming up when I walked to a corner store to get a cake mix for the birthday party.  Snow on the mountains west of the city looked like pink glass in that early morning sunshine.  Breathtaking.

I remember, too, the day I had to walk to work in two feet of snow.  I was exhausted and light headed from my efforts by the time I arrived at the store, so I slipped in the back door-not allowed-and got caught by the store manager.  He had no sympathy for me at all.

Big snow storms, for the most part, have been absent from our experience because we haven't lived in cold climates.  We had a lovely snow in Tennessee.  We took a memorable walk through the woods, but the snow was gone the next day.

There was the 22" in Chicago that was just a heavy, wet snow that made it extremely difficult to drive.  Cars would run out of gas on the Eisenhower.  The driver would get out of the car and walk away.  Cars approaching had no idea if the car was stopped or waiting on traffic to move in front of them.  When we had to stop, Bob would jump out and free the windshield wipers of snow so heavy they couldn't keep the windows clean.  Forget the rear window, or even the side windows.  It was like driving in a cave.  When I figured out the stopped car in front of me was empty, it became a matter of finding a way to change lanes without getting clobbered or cussed.  Move a few car lengths and stop again.  I think it took about 4 or 5 hours to drive less than 25 miles that night.

In Steubenville, there was a blizzard on Halloween.  Drifts were so high, the landlord's snow plow couldn't handle the snow.  He and Bob shoveled it down until the plow could move it.  Even worse, there were ice storms once a week for 6 weeks.  My adrenaline still kicks in when I think of how we did donuts in the KFC parking lot filled with other cars and ended up less than an inch from broadsiding another car.

But, the snow that makes me laugh when I think of it is the time Bob had a conference in Detroit. We were living in Chicago. Snow was hitting the windshield but not sticking to the highway. I called people we'd visited in Detroit to tell them we'd arrived home a half hour sooner in spite of the snow. She laughed and said she supposed the Lord had not yet convicted Bob of speeding.  But then, she liked to ride with people like that.  She'd get there sooner, but have nothing to confess!