The South - Snowed in

My first winter in Georgia was educational. I learned that even a prediction of precipitation means I should make a rush trip to the store to stock up on bread and beer, that I need to put the buckets out to collect water in case the electricity goes out (I was out in the middle of nowhere and not connected to a sewer line, so if I wanted to flush toilets…), and then during the actual event I should hunker down and never! leave the house. (I actually had grabbed my camera and gone sightseeing, that icy world was unlike anything I had ever seen before but for months afterward my neighbors thought I was either foolish or reckless for going outdoors in the ice and cold.) Ice storms are actually more common than snow in this area of the South, and during my three years in the Piedmont I only saw the white stuff stick a couple of times.

 

My first winter in Greenville brought a mega-ice storm, one serious enough that even my camera and I stayed indoors. The evening news report centered around the steep road leading to an office building’s parking lot; the first car had misjudged the slippery curve and ended up in the ditch, and the next twenty cars or so all thought they would fare better resulting in a two dozen car pile-up on a quarter-mile stretch of road. The winters since then have been rather mild; the occasional snow/ice that is hard to get excited about, and since the boys have lived in Greenville there has been nothing to build a snowball with. Until yesterday!

 

Although less than an inch of snow fell over the course of late afternoon/evening yesterday, schools were closed at noon and many employees sent home early. School has been cancelled for the day, and (both) salt/sand trucks are out in full force. Being from Chicago it is hard not to laugh at these precautions/reactions to the snow, but the worry could be warranted; a large majority of drivers are not equipped/experienced enough to handle the slippery conditions, and only a few blocks from our house we saw the first casualty – a large SUV that had taken a turn too fast and slid into the curb/sewer.

 

So what did we do? We spent an hour in the backyard catching snowflakes and watching the white stuff accumulate before heading indoors to warm up and wait for dad to get home. Then, it was off to Falls Park for some sledding. My boys have seen a good foot of snow while up north during the holidays, but none this year as we spent Christmas in SC and so they were perfectly happy with the paltry inch that didn’t even completely cover the grass in most places. Thanks to our wonderful neighbors we were sledding in style on a real sled, instead of the tupperware lids and cardboard boxes we had planned to improvise with. Of course Roberts brought the Frisbees too, which ended up being a major hit with all the high school kids that joined us on the hill.

 

To all those in the deep freeze up north, I wish you plenty of hot chocolate, curling up in blankets to read good books, and warm clothes to bundle up in for those venturing outside. But to all my friends down South, I wish you the ability to see the snow through the eyes of a child, the motivation to slide down a hill on a trash can lid and the time to wander about and see this new world through a white lens. (Just remember to drive carefully!)