Thank Goodness I Grew Up with Snow

I was searching through my photos for a picture of our house in Wilton from about 1967. It was before Janet was born. We still had the many garages on the down stairs part of our house, before my parents converted them to a down stairs kitchen and playroom and bathroom. I think photo was black and white, so go figure how old that was.

The photo showed that it had snowed so much and obviously blown so much that the snow had completely covered the garage doors and the top of the drift was at the bottom of the windows on the second floor. Margaret and I climbed up the drift and were looking in the second floor windows.

A subsequent photo showed the tunnel my Dad shoveled from one garage door to another. We opened the garage doors from the inside and walked out one garage door in the tunnel and back in a different garage door. It was a fun game, especially since our garages were heated. It was exciting. It was also just snow. So it wasn’t dangerous, like ice.

Growing up with all that snow, regularly, we learned how to drive in snow. Cars were big and heavy, but we didn’t have four wheel drive. We learned that snow gave you traction and as long as you went at a steady, not too fast a pace you could drive no problem.

Fast forward to today. I was teaching Mah Jongg in Cary when the snow started coming down. Since it has been so cold the snow was sticking as it fell. The good news about that it it was not melting and refreezing so it remained snow. Snow equals traction.

Not everyone in North Carolina knows how to, or likes to drive in snow. So there is a predictable amount of freaking out about snow. To make sure my students were going to survive the snow we ended class an hour early, planning on making up the time in subsequent classes.

I got on the road to get home. Driving was fine. I went fairly slowly, just so I could stop if need be at lights. I got on the highway and there were plenty of cars, but most were doing the right thing. The snow was coming down fast.

By the time I got to my exit we had about and inch of snow. It was so beautiful, but there were people who followed too closely or tried to break too quickly. I watched as one man slid into the middle of an intersection he was trying to stop at because he waited until the last minute to break. Thankfully no one was coming the other way.

I got to my neighborhood and it was obvious no one had driven on the road at all. I had the pristine virgin snow all to myself with the snow still falling. With no other cars to worry about sliding into me I inched along savoring the snowfall. I was back in my childhood when snow meant fun.

I am so glad I don’t have a history of fearing snow. Now I just fear people who don’t know how to handle it. If that is you, stay home. Learning to drive in snow is something that should be done young.