t’s snow time

Native Writes

All of this snow has brought memories to the surface.
They can dig out; we have to work at it.
Small cars are stranded, larger, heavier vehicles can move, but with assistance.
Remembrances begin: “Back in the day.”
Yeah, I know. We didn’t have snow days and girls couldn’t wear jeans. We had to wear dresses the rest of the time.
True story.
The nuns were watchdogs. I don’t know how they maneuvered with their long black habits. That’s probably why they changed to street length skirts.
Still, there were no snow days. If the buses could roll, so could the kids in town.
Talking with one of my sons, I recalled the fun we had playing in the snow.
“It was up to my waist,” I began.
The reply: “You were four feet tall.”
Well, there’s that. It did seem deeper then and the artesian wells would spout at least 10 feet in the air, where they created ice sculptures that sat until the next thaw.
Neighborhood children gathered to build igloos and snow forts. Dads cleared snow with coal shovels while freshly washed clothes froze to the line.
Then, like now, it was cold.
I don’t remember anyone having problems getting cars out onto the street from curbside parking places, but I’m sure they did. The vehicles were heavier and all were stick shift.
Snowplows were out at the crack of dawn and somehow got the white stuff into a pile in the middle of the street or at one corner of each block. It was fun, fun, fun until they came and hauled it away.
The piles of snow were dirty and there was mud. I’m not sure what it is about mud, but it attracts youngsters like honey attracts flies. It also sticks to whatever it touches.
Muddy times continued when gravel trucks came out and scattered dirt at street corners and everyone had snow tires to get through.
As we read and listen to reports about the drought, it’s hard to believe. We are up to our chins in snow and it’s wet, but the experts submit that only a flood of “Biblical proportions” will return the underground aquifer to where it should be.
That news didn’t come into play when I was young, but problems with irrigation ditches did.
One of the first big stories I covered was an assault case in which one old farmer whacked the other with a shovel because of the poorly timed opening of a head gate.
It was spring runoff and there was plenty of water, or was there?
As I walk to my mostly snowbound car, I say a silent prayer that the moisture will be there, come spring.