Snow calls back childhood memories

A white Christmas may not be as precious to folks who live where a snowy Yuletide is the usual order of the season, but to me a white Christmas is cool in every sense of the term, and that is exactly what we had this year!

I agree with the fellow who commented that in all of nature’s vast array of beauty, nothing transforms the world more beautifully than snow. I’ve always loved it.

When I was a child growing up in Amarillo, Texas, I didn’t know that our snows there were big even by Texas standards and that we had more of them than most folks in the state. But they were, and we did.

I have fond memories of walking/sliding toward the door of our house at 125 N. Goliad through a shoveled-out snow-path. I was thrilled that the snow on either side of the path was piled up higher than my head!

And I well remember a snow sometime later when my younger brother Jim and I opened the windows of our bedroom as high as they’d go so we could fling ourselves through them to slide down drifts blown right up to the window sills.

Those were great snows, and it warms my heart to think of them. Come to think of it, I suppose I’ve spent most of my adult life hoping each winter for a snow or two to somehow equal those.

Maybe that explains why I get a little ticked off when the meteorological “powers that be” promise us a really good snow but the flakes flop or the storm track turns or fizzles.

I’m always looking for the kind of snow where the school folks have no hard choice at all about handing out a snow day because the air conditioners on top of the buildings are all that’s left sticking out of the white stuff. Mark Twain was wise when he allowed that he never let his schooling interfere with his education. Kids need some time to throw snowballs and build snowmen. If the Texas Education Agency doesn’t list “snow-play” among the essential elements of a good education, that just shows how little they know.

We won’t get a white Christmas every year around here, but we’ll get one occasionally, and it’s a nice Christmas gift when it happens.

And, yes, in my neck of the woods we’ll occasionally get some pretty fine snows. But I need to come to terms with it: I doubt any snow-lover in his 50’s like me will ever get a snow as thrilling as those of his childhood.

I guess I should be happy. I’ve had snow on my head year round for a good while now. But topping out at over six feet means your eyes are higher up than they were when your nose-altitude was down around three feet. Head-high snows are harder to come by.

I can hardly wait for heaven! The particular joys behind everything that thrills and delights us here will all be there, bigger and better and more beautiful than even wide-eyed children could ever imagine. And I’m looking for some better than ever snows!