by Kevin Burton
Those color-coded national weather maps always showed the true snow calamity hitting other regions. We in Central Kansas were to be spared.
But there were breathless local forecasts calling for eight inches of snow on Saturday. My “rule of half” said we would get about four.
Sure enough, by my unofficial walked-through-it-to-the-mailbox measure, and by investigating by my wife Jeannette, four is in fact what we got.
None of that been-there-done-that Midwestern winter experience stopped us from over-shopping on Friday, and chatting amiably about it with other people in the grocery checkout line. It’s what we do.
And, the weather forecasters could be right after all.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, hooo, hooo, hoooooo! Just kidding!
I got a warm feeling Friday seeing the garage door close, knowing I was hunkered down together with my bride, no plans to go anywhere until Monday.
But it was also a good feeling to know we could get out and go somewhere with no trouble at all, if there were some kind of emergency with my mother or hers, both in their 90s.
Were I able to order snowfall on Amazon, what we would get is right around three inches on Christmas Eve, to be melted altogether by Dec. 27.
I also like that dusting of snow that sometimes comes before Thanksgiving, the first snow of the year. That one is maybe not quite an inch of snow but everything is covered and it melts almost immediately.
Harmless enough. So cute! It’s like seeing little baby shoes without having to smell or change any diapers.
I have a friend in Michigan and I reported to her almost sheepishly, our recent weather events. What we just got isn’t worthy of a mention in Michigan. That’s the way it is when your state is shaped like a mitten.
Also, I respect those guys who walk the streets, notice who hasn’t shoveled their driveway and offer their services for a small fee. Some people came around Sunday and I told them, no thanks.
That could easily be the last time I say, no thanks. We stopped cleaning our own gutters as of last year.
My favorite snow memories are of the blizzard of 1978. I was in Columbus, Ohio at the school for the blind. We woke up one morning and the house parents said classes were cancelled. First came that feeling of glee. Second the question: how much does it have to snow to cancel classes at a residential school?
Well it snowed plenty. When we were finally allowed to go from our cottage to the main school building a few days later, the snow drifts were more than seven feet high in some places. It was great fun for us kids, but anything but for the grown-ups.
Wikipedia says the event is also known as the Cleveland Superbomb. I had never heard that, but that sounds good to me!
Also I spent two plus years in Alaska including two winters. The four inches we got in the Wichita area Saturday? In the Mat-Su borough, Alaska we used to get that much snow and more, four or five times a week. The snow would begin to appear on the mountaintops and reach the bottom around my birthday – in late August.
I earned my keep as a carpooler more than once by getting out and pushing the car out of a snowbank.
High school football in Alaska begins in late summer because you just can’t play in the dead of the winter.
Since my Alaska days I have rarely (maybe three times) experienced any snow that was historically memorable.
You won’t hear me complaining though. I did my shoveling Sunday before the NFL conference championship games started. The snow was light, the weather moderately cold. No wind. No problem.
Prayers for people in those regions that were not so fortunate.
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