Snow Day

Its been snowing outside. The weather forecast was throwing around scary words - "historic," "power outages" and  "national guard." My husband is traveling, so I put in a few extra supplies, made sure we had batteries in the flashlights and extra water just in case, and my son and the dogs and I hunkered down. Then we only got 7 inches.

I'm used to snow. I grew up north of Boston, and we used to have some amazing snow storms. We lived in a big house (big enough to accommodate the ten of us) on High Street, and we all had shoveling duties in those days before the snowblower.

A great blog by Gordon Harris includes an article and photos of the historic storm of 1978 -- it was crazy, although my biggest memories are of people cross country skiing down the middle of the unplowed streets, and of Governor Dukakis in his winter sweaters on tv.

One day, after another, less historic storm, one of my sisters wanted to make cookies but we were lacking ingredients. The sun was shining, the streets had been plowed, and since the A&P was just a half mile from the house, I volunteered to go. My big sister Ginger tied a scarf around my neck and warned me to stay off of the road itself.

I headed out, bundled warmly and began my trek trough the drifts on the sides of the road. Now the drifts were enormous by my standards, and with each step I sunk in above my boots. It was slow going, and in no time I was weaving a story, having to do with Heidi and bringing supplies to my poor grandfather stuck in the cabin up on the mountain. I purchased my milk and eggs and headed back out into my daydream, completely immersed in my story of heroics.

Imagine my surprise, halfway home, when I heard my name called out. It was not Grandfather, of course, it was Ginger, and she had called several times before I came out of my reverie. She was in the road, and I was carefully picking my way through the drifts as high as my middle.

She was not pleased. "We were so worried about you, what on earth took you so long?"

I looked at her in surprise. "You said not to walk in the road!"

I think she still feels guilty, but I had a wonderful time.