Originally posted by Jean Beetham Smith
Today I drove again. Of course the parking lot at work hadn't been plowed so I had to park a half mile away and walk to work from there. It took until 11 am for the snowplowing service to do our lot. By this afternoon the road surfaces were looking a lot better, but the roadways are very narrow and the snow piled on the sides is well over my head. I don't have a safety flag, so I am a little nervous about riding tomorrow, I will just have to walk across some inter-sections where visibility is really bad. Do other deep snow commuters use safety flags?
Excuse me for my bad manners, Miss Jean, but may I interject?
Dang...I miss the snow. I grew up in Rockville, Md. We had snow every winter, sometimes enough to make those, "roadways [with the] the snow piled on the sides...well over my head." I remember my best friends building fortresses and tunnels in those huge mounds.
And those quiet nights, looking out the window at the snow falling in the front yard (still perfect since no one had walked through it yet,) becoming brighter as it fell past the street light. Some amazing meditative thoughts then, even as a child.
We all had sleds and (what were they called?) those "flying saucers" (which you could steer almost as accurately as, well, a car without a steering wheel.) I remember "The Hill," a gravel-covered, tree-lined road that always started as snow, but soon became hard-packed, then ice, then ice with patches of gravel that sometime caused sparks from the metal runners of the sleds (am I dreaming, or did I actually see sparks?
I miss it...)
Wiping out and hitting a tree, or falling through the ice into the shallow creek, both painful memories, seem beautiful, now...
Even the smell of snow is something I'll never forget.
(Do they sell imported snow in Atlanta somewhere? :confused: )