At about 10:30 this morning I looked up from my desk as that precipation moved from drizzle to a thicker stuff called SNOW. What a surprise and how captivating. I honestly could not take my eyes off it. The flakes were large and thick. Now almost 6 hours –and it is still snowing! The ground isn’t cold enough for there to be inches of snow, but in the hill surrounding my cottage, the snow is accumulating under the trees and also on my car and steps. If the temperature drops below freezing, we will definitely have ice to deal with. The sky and limbs and branches of trees and flowering bushes are a winter wonder land. And I am enjoying every moment of it. Snow is actually rare in the deep South, but I have some memories of beautiful snow.
When I was about 10 years old, I remember skating to the local theatre with my brothers on a Saturday a.m., seeing the serial western and cartoons and coming out of the theatre finding the ground covered with snow. What fun we had playing in that snow!
My next memory of snow was in 1956. I was in college in Birmingham, Alabama. It was Valentine’s day and all the student body (it was a small college) was enjoying a Valentine dinner and program, when someone came in to announce a “huge” snow fall. We had many students from Pennsylvania, Illinois, etc. and they were reluctant to call it snow, but they did surely enjoying sliding down the hill on makeshift sledes and coming inside for hot chocolate with the rest of us southerns who thought 4 inches of snow was, indeed, a snow storm.
The next real memory of snow was in Brooklyn, New York. I don’t know how many inches we had, but it was a lot. My previous memories were of a white, beautiful snow for playing in and making snow ice cream. This snow was grey and dirty as it was on the streets of New York and all piled up at the subway entrances. It was not an inviting “thing” to play in, but something to get inside from as quickly as possible. And it was bitter cold. I wore my first real winter coat that year I spent in Brooklyn, New York. I was a candidate with the Africa Inland Mission and I was “on trial” for a year before they deemed me worthy of being a missionary!
The next snow memory is from Brussels, Belgium. This was, of course, in the city as well, but oh so different. We discovered the snow about midnight. The Pension (boarding house) where I lived with about 13 other French students, was right off Louise Boulevard. The snow had blanketed the streets and sidewalks. Not a print, machine or human, was in the snow. It was the quietest, most beautiful picture I have ever seen. Of course when we shoed up and went outside to walk we disturbed the scene with our foot prints and places where we scooped out snowballs! But it quickly filled back up again. It was breathtaking!
Next memory was Tallahassee, Florida, where my two children were born (not in a cottonfield, but at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital!) All snow that goes beyond what is called a “flurrie” is a major occurrence in the South. This one was a surprise, as well. It seems that if you expect snow, it doesn’t materialize, but if you are not looking for it, it comes.
Snow is wonderful! Does anyone remember the unexpected blizzard in the mid 80’s? We were living in Toco Hills area of Atlanta (I now know that I was living in Buckhead, just unaware of it.) It occurred in the early afternoon. My gas tank was practically on empty so I decided that I had better hot medal it to a gas station to fill up, just in case we had an emergency. By the time I drove 1 mile to the station and started back the mile to get to my home, there were stranded cars on all the streets. I barely made it home, which was across from the private school that my children attended. They could walk home, but many of their classmates were stranded because their parents were stuck somewhere in Atlanta and could not get to them. On the stove went the hot chocolate pot and popcorn. I don’t know how many young people and children were holed up at my house that afternoon and evening. For some of them it was the next day before their parents could get to them. Many people were stranded in the hotels and restaurants in Atlanta. Some walked home. All played in the wonderful snow.
And now today, snow in Georgia!
