Only snow

It snowed for approximately 3 minutes on Tuesday about 11:00 am. No. I mean it. Snow. Enough so you could definitely see it coming down for about three full minutes. Everyone got up and opened the blinds and stood and watched. Some actually took a few pictures or video’d stuff with their phones. I wasn't impressed. I knew it wasn't anything I was interested in.
I have seen it snow here before. No. I mean it. Really snow. It started on a Friday and didn’t stop all weekend. It accumulated into piles of white gloppy, icy mess. I was home alone that weekend with a three year old Sonny.  Dante was born that year on May 3rd so I was also pregnant.  We had just moved from the closest thing to the tropics and still be in the United States – the southern most tip – where it only gets to 32 degrees for a few hours once a year. We had just moved here and it snowed. I watched it snow and snow and not stop and it was piling higher and higher and I kept thinking it was going to bury the outside heating unit and it would go out. They would find a three year old boy and his mother frozen from no heat. What did I know? I was from the near tropics? We didn’t have houses there made with the materials for that kind of temperatures. We didn’t have clothes that were made for that kind of temperatures. I knew just enough to make me worry. I wasn’t the only one there to worry about.
And people wonder why I have problem with the cold. They think I don’t know or haven’t experienced the winter wonderland of it all. It takes on a whole different face when you are dealing with it unexpectedly and totally unprepared for something that wasn’t supposed to happen in this area at all.
They said at the time it was a good thing it happened on a weekend because the entire loop that transported everyone everywhere was completely shut down. The city was caught totally unprepared. It wasn’t a fun, exciting or fanciful experience. We tried to make it fun. Sonny went out and tried to play and came back with soaked shoes and socks and wet gloves. I changed them out and stuck big plastic bags over his shoes and hands to keep them dry. He went out again and gathering enough snow to make the smallest snowman in the history of the world. We actually built it inside at the kitchen table it was so cold for us and then took it back outside. We tried, but that one time was too many for me.
So I was unimpressed when it snowed on Tuesday for three minutes. I stayed warm inside with multiple layers of clothing knowing the three year old is now 28 and the other will be 25 on May 3rd this year. We made it through what turned out to have been a historic weekend for the city and one that was more fearful for me than I had thought about in a long time.
Isn’t it silly how some things stay with you after all these years?

January 1985 - 13.5 inches of snow

TT