Advent Calendar, Day 6 ~ Snowstick!
I love snow. As a matter of fact, I’ve always loved it. My earliest memories of childhood harken back to the days my mother, brother and I lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota while my father was serving as an Air Force navigator in Vietnam. Talk about snow! When my father returned after doing 2 tours safe and sound, we relocated to Dayton, Ohio where I could swear there was just as much or even more snow than Minnesota. Lake Effect, they called it. My brother and I simply thought it was heaven. We built igloos and snowmen, had snowball fights, which I invariably ended up crying over in the end because my eye-hand coordination hadn’t quite developed yet - I was only 4 years old, but still capable of feeling a wee bit incompetent at the reindeer games we played over and over and over!
Ahh, those were such wonderful times. I don’t remember school closings due to the weather in Dayton. I was too young and busy watching Laugh In, probably. It wasn’t until we moved to Andrews Air Force Base and then to the Virginia subburbs a couple years afterward that I became obsessed with snow forecasts. Yes, those were the days way before snow pants and down sweaters had been invented! My brother and I would sit glued to the television the night before a storm was predicted, hanging on the weatherman’s every word. How many inches? Will school be cancelled, or just delayed? I remember we had a favorite weatherman on channel 4. He had red hair and directed all his snow forecasts to us kids, which, of course, made him way cool in our book. More often than not, he was right, so we really trusted him when he predicted a full out closing the next day.
With ants of anticipation in our pants, my brother and I would wake up earlier than we normally would and turn to turn on the TV, waiting with glee for any mention of Fairfax County Schools. Most definitely, more than once, the two of us ended up dancing with glee around the kitchen table upon hearing the splendid news before racing up the stairs to don our long underwear and, quite possibly, not one, but two pairs of jeans. Mom would bundle us up with her hand knit scarfs, wooly mittens and hats, and then we’d run outside to make snowmen in the front yard. And if we were really adventurous, we’d drag our sleds a mile up the road to the elementary school where the biggest hill in all of Springfield was sure to be covered in what looked like multi-colored, gargantuan bees - a gazillion over insulated kids just like ourselves hungry for snow-driven SPEED!
And we wouldn’t even think of returning until every last calorie had run out. Maybe 3 or 4 hours later we’d stagger through the front door, drunk on all that Old Man Winter would serve up, our jeans totally soaked through with faces flushed a healthy red from the wind and cold! It’s a feeling I’ve not had in many years - of wet cold skin released from frigid damp longjohns to the warm glow of the fireplace mom was keeping stoked for us during our winter gallumphing outside. Synthetic ski pants and parkas have all but done away with that, and I wonder at what incredible expense as I sit in front of my computer 40 years hence, like some old fart “wrinkly,” as my boyfriend’s 20-something daughter likes to put it - I assure you, it’s a term of massive endearment.
Yes, these are the memories conjured up by today’s Advent Calendar appearing on Banjo Bunny Ecards. Wonderfully warm and creative recollections, indeed!