Let It Snow!
Disclaimer: Sorry, not sorry. This article may contain references only children of the last millennium will understand. The rest of you will have to use your google-thingy for terms like “studded tires” and “bench seats.”
My husband and I dream of moving fulltime to the beach. But we’re torn. We’ll miss our friends, mountain hikes, and sales taxes. But deep down I know I’m the holdout. I love, and I mean LOVE, snow. All my life. Granted, it’s rare to get the white drifting piles of yore. But I know my chances plummet if I live along the Delaware coast.
I blame my Dad. He had a childlike approach to many things, heavy snow being one of them. He went out of his mind with excitement for an approaching deluge. My Dad was to snow what Dirty Harry was to criminals. He loved to conquer it. Man over the elements.
As a kid in the coal country of northeastern Pennsylvania, or NEPA (“knee-pa”), flurries and squalls started shortly after Halloween. The smell of snow was always in the air and the anticipation was contagious and maddening.
My hand-me-down, two-sizes-too-small galoshes were always at the ready. As were the plastic bread bags my Mom insisted would make my feet effortlessly slide right in. They didn’t.
I learned the term nor’easter long before I could spell it. I couldn’t grasp the idea that the heaviest snow came from below us. But Dad taught me the delicate balance between a cold north wind and a moisture filled southern storm.
Dad always wanted to be “the first on the roads.” Before the plows. Heck, we didn’t shovel our sidewalks until after we came back from our first joy ride. I mean, car ride.
By today’s standards I think us kids would be in protective services. Come to think of it, our seatbelts were pushed below the covers on the bench seats. Luckily the statute has expired for posthumously charging my old man.
Never to be bettered by a storm, Dad swapped his bare retreads for studded tires every fall. For blizzards, he labored to cover those tires with chains. He even spread coal ashes over our inclined driveway for extra traction.
He’d rub his hands together, the eagerness torturing him. Then he’d pile us in. Warm the engine for a throat-burning couple of minutes. And off. Off and away, we’d slip and slide go.
We thundered (literally, due to the chains) up the San Souci parkway in mammoth V8s like our Chrysler New Yorker. It was spectacular. Exclusive. And when we arrived at our destination we felt an addictive taste of accomplishment. Like we’d won the gold medal in team slalom.
Sometimes a chain would break. We’d know it immediately. The thumping sound was deafening, as was Dad’s bevy of potty mouth slurs. Never mind if a chain nicked a quarter panel. They were mostly rust or Bondo.
Mom was prim and proper. But she had a hand in it too. Sure, she’d tell my Dad to slow down. Not that hill. Watch that curve. But every once in a while, I’d catch her smiling as she white-knuckled the handle above her door.
We never panic-bought anything. Not milk, not bread, not eggs. Probably because Dad relished having a life-or-death reason to drive. I’m pretty sure he secretly willed us to run out of toilet paper. Not hard to do in a family of six.
For days after a storm, Dad loved driving. He relished the slushy wagon-trailed roads, proudly ogling the tracks we’d made in the berm days before. He’d point to large icicles, and wave to strangers, smiling as he drank in the blazing blue sky and extra-bright sun.
So yeah, the idea of a walk along the waves every day of the year tugs at me. But if we ever do move to the beach fulltime...and I get wind of a big snow back home...well, I don’t know what I’ll do. I guess I’ll start by snoozing every northern friend I have. Your posts will drive me crazy. ▼
Ed and his husband Jerry split their time between homes near Harrisburg Pennsylvania and Bethany Beach. Ed builds websites to pay the bills but loves to cook, garden, hike, and dote on their dog Atticus.