"It's Snowing!"

To be young again….  Of course, many of us wish for that once in a while, especially when events happen that are more negative in nature.  It’s funny that I should say nature since Mother Nature is the source for the negative to which I refer.

Recent climatic events in the northeastern United States have seen snow in amounts not seen for quite a few years dumped on communities from New York to Maine causing power outages, vehicle accidents, lost work, and in a few cases, loss of life.

One thing I didn’t mention was lost school days, a fact widely unlamented by school children across the region, I’m sure.  And it is to that school child that I address these remarks.

Christmas Eve day, 1969, about one o’clock in the afternoon, the first flakes of snow began wafting their way to an already whitened ground with a few blades of frozen grass peeking through here and there.  We’d had a warming spell the week prior and snow coverage was getting mighty sparse.  I worried we wouldn’t have a white Christmas.  I was eleven.

The snow fort my two younger brothers and I had built was little more than a large, lumpy mound of snow and ice near the edge of our semi-circular driveway.  It looked like vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips that have been left out all night. 

We lived at the bottom of a pretty steep hill in a small town in central Maine.  For my siblings and I, that was a great mix--Maine, snow and ice, and a hill that no shortage of motorists thought they could drive up without getting stuck.  We earned a worthy addition to our meager allowances by shoveling out the folks whose cars came to rest firmly in deep snow banks after sliding back down our hill.

Pressed against the light frost on the window, our noses and warm breath made complex patterns on the glass as we watched the snow fall harder.  Huge flakes coming almost straight down quickly covered what little grass peeked through that early-winter thaw.  Mom kept telling us to get away from the windows; we were getting them dirty.

“Can we go out and play, Mom?” I asked.  I knew we had chores but I hoped she’d like to have the place quiet for awhile.

“You know better,” she said, smiling.  “Snow’s not going anywhere. Sooner you get to ‘em, sooner you’ll get outside,” she added.

It’s probably one of those things learned when one crosses the threshold of adulthood—the right incentive to get children to complete that which is considered distasteful in a timely fashion.  All I know is we finished our chores in record time.  Six inches of new snow had fallen by the time we bundled up and stepped foot outside.

Joined by several friends, we cut lane after lane on the hill above our house with sleds, toboggans and cardboard boxes.  At one point late that afternoon, we had about 15 kids playing on that hill. Even then, the snow was falling so hard, we were barely able to keep our sledding lanes clear.  By the time Mom called us to supper, almost 18 inches of snow had fallen.

Christmas tradition in our house allowed us to choose one gift at dinnertime that we could open before leaving for Midnight Mass.  We’d then celebrate Christmas in the wee hours right after church, retiring to bed as the adrenalin finally wore off.  We were used to sleeping rather late in the morning.

This year, tradition started as usual—right after supper Dad closed the living room sliding doors hiding the tree and presents. We all played board games at the kitchen table after supper, drinking hot cocoa and eating Christmas cookies for dessert. 

Around the time we were to get ready for mass, Mom got a call from the church prayer line saying the pastor had cancelled mass because of the deep snow, the only time she could remember that happening.

Dad sent us to our rooms to get ready for bed. Mom and he would be up to tuck us in.  I figured we’d open presents in the morning like most folks.  I knew I’d have a hard time sleeping.

About thirty minutes later, Dad came up and told us all to come downstairs.  The living room doors were open, the interior as festive as Rockefeller Center.  A seven-foot Fraser Fir stood proudly in the middle of the bay window festooned with several strands of multi-colored lights.  Lighted candles on the mantle and on every window sill, and a crackling fire from the cedar log sent shadows dancing into every corner.  The smell of hot cider and the log in the fireplace invited us in.  Our favorite Christmas sing-a-long songs by Mitch Miller were on the phonograph. 

Somehow, Santa had slipped in while we were changing upstairs. Presents were everywhere … and we didn’t give how another thought.

What a storm that was.  We woke up Christmas Day to 38 inches of snow.  Dad called it a Nor-easter; I called it the best storm ever.  Though we were on school break and didn’t miss any school, it caused the cancellation of Midnight Mass.  It changed our Christmas tradition to something very memorable.  Oh, and my brothers and I earned almost seven dollars apiece on Christmas Day helping shovel stranded motorists out of the snow drifts.

Of course, we would soon be pretty tired of shoveling.  It took my dad and brothers and I two days to clear our long driveway.  The banks were almost as high as the porch roof. 

Two days later, another Nor’easter dumped 34 more inches of snow on us. 

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