Snow Today

On a day like today, Mother Nature can not be said to be spitting snow, for she is floating each white flake like goose down plucked from the softest pillows in heaven.

I remember as a child at my grandmother's house, spying the first tentative flakes and wondering and hoping that it was the start of a big snow storm. We didn't have forecasting and radar with instant access via the internet like we do now. It was always just a guess for us.

And those big snow storms were magical to me. I loved to watch the wind whip snow around the porch and shrubs. The swirling effect at night, around the floodlight on the barn, was hypnotic. It was like being on a great ship at sea as the briny spray whipped up over the bow and crashed down upon the heaving decks. Over and over, the great waves came. Over and over, the great snow swirled.

And when the great storms subsided, we'd be left with mountains of new white snow in which to build fort and fortress. I remember one winter the snows would eventually reach up to the roof, when windows and doors became openings at the end of long tunnels carved through the snow. When was that? Was it the winter of '66, returning from Iran, when the snowbanks in Gilmanton, NH were as deep as I was tall and then some?