I live in Arkansas. That means summer is already upon us…in February! The agony of running my air conditioning during the winter brings me considerable pain. I want snow. I love snow. I love the crisp cold of a winter afternoon with the sky so gray it has no depth. Back in 2012, our little town of Bentonville received around 18 inches of snow.
My boss let the office out early as the snow started and wasn’t expected to stop. But I had a problem—my windshield wipers were not working very well. So, I improvised. The driver’s side window still worked. I rolled it down and stuck out my head.
As I turned into the neighborhood, I was yelling woo-hoo at the top of my lungs. My wife still says these years later she heard me. She said I looked as happy as a young boy who received a bicycle for his birthday.
Because of that snowstorm, I had the opportunity to teach my children the joys of playing out in a winter wonderland. We went sledding down a huge hill in town. I taught them how to use a trashcan to build snow bricks for a fort.
At one point, while sledding, my own children were shedding layers because I had told them they shouldn’t let themselves get so warm they started sweating. When we looked around, several of the other people—parents and kids alike—were shivering and appeared downright miserable. I guess they hadn’t learned the art of dressing in layers.
Winter is my thing. When I lived in Iceland as a child, the first snow always came on October 12th. When Chrissi and I visited in 2023, we saw snow on the ground on December 15th. But my greatest snow memory must be the Chicago Blizzard of ’79.
The weather service, in their infinite wisdom, predicted a couple of inches to fall over the January 13-14 weekend. By the time Sunday evening rolled around, the 38-hour long blizzard had dumped 29 inches on us.
The back door opened to the north. My father pulled it open, and we saw nothing but solid snow. It had drifted up to within a foot or two of my parents’ upstairs window. He dug tunnels through the snow so my dog could get out and do his business.
When the plows finally made it down to our street, they piled the snow up so high in the cul-de-sac, we had a mountain down which we sled until April. It didn’t matter it was the nastiest, dirtiest snow anyone had ever seen. We dug tunnels through it. We had several routes down its slopes. I still smile whenever I think about those days.
Today in Arkansas, the temperatures climbed to the mid-50s. They are expected to reach the 60s over the weekend, but I imagine we will see 70 degrees as we did this past weekend. If I have to suffer through the depredations of summer in winter, at least I have my winter memories to fall back on.
