Snow Day

While other people hunkered down today to wait out the storm, our family went skiing. And the skiing was good. It wasn’t two feet of perfect Colorado powder amid a blue-sky backdrop. It was more like a foot or so of New England snow, windswept by bone-chilling gusts that were still blasting away. No matter – everything is relative, including skiing, and who doesn’t love a powder day?

Getting out to enjoy the gifts of Mother Nature is a heck of a lot more fun than lamenting the weather. In the ridiculous craze of over-hyped weather reporting and naming snow storms (Nemo? Really?), snow in February has become a surprising event for some, it seems. But, um, it IS winter in New England.

Perhaps my memory is skewed, but I don’t think we used to get so worked up about the weather. My only memory of the Blizzard of ’78 is of huge piles of snow in our driveway, transformed into snow forts for a big snowball battle. I was only 4 years old then, and my brothers were 7 and 1: too young, all of us, to worry about the implications of closed roads and power outages.

My dad, who worked about a 45-minute car commute away, barely made if off the Mass Pike that February day before it was closed. One of the guys in his carpool leaned out the window, scraping ice off the windshield, the entire drive home. Thankfully, they all made it home safe and sound.

My mother tells me that my memory of the snow fort and snowball fight is accurate, and that our friends, who had kids of similar ages, walked over through the snow-covered roads, which were closed to cars, to join in the fun. Then we all walked over to their place for dinner. “It was really nice, actually,” Mom recalls. “Everyone walked everywhere and actually talked to each other.”

Probably some folks were tucked into warm blankets by the fireplace back in 1978, too. That just wasn’t my family’s style. Still isn’t. Mom drove us over many a treacherous road to reach Franconia, NH, from our central Massachusetts home to ski each winter weekend. When it snowed, we were sent outside to play, just like we were in pretty much any other weather. We were kids; we loved the snow.

So, when I hear people freaking out about “Snowstorm Nemo,” I don’t really get it. I understand public officials urging people to stay off the roads, but do folks really need to be told to stay inside? Have we lost our basic safety common sense to the point where we don’t know if it’s too cold or windy to go out? Certainly it’s not too snowy.

Beyond the paranoia-invoking weather media, I am also vexed by the New Englanders who bemoan the snow. Living in New England and not wanting it to snow in mid-winter is just plain silly. Move south, for crying out loud, and leave the powder for those of us who appreciate it.

As for me, I’ll keep doing my snow dance, hoping for more of the white stuff this season, dreaming of powder days.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted on her Blog: Writings from a full life.