New Winter Article

Winter Article - 2015

by

B.D. Adams ©2015

 

            Ah, winter. Pristine, driven snow that washes the landscape with clean white! It takes one’s breath away, the sheer beauty!

            Hog-wash!! It’s fricking cold!!

            I actually like the cold after a wicked hot summer. I love the beauty of the falling snow. Very true. However, the last two winters here in New Hampshire have been anything but pleasant.

            The temperatures for the last two years, I believe, have been in competition with Siberia! To date, snow has built up over six feet where we live. There are places that have had more of that “white stuff.” Our fake, plywood moose stands on the incline of our backyard and has snow to his belly. Morris the Moose stands over 5’. That is how I’ve measured the amount of snow out my kitchen window. Plus, there is supposed to be a new batch this week! Bummer.

            I was born in Texas and lived there until November 1968. From Ft. Worth, I relocated to Ohio to attend OSU. Before then, I had never experienced much snow. Some icy weather, but not much snow.

            Then, I had a rude awakening about the reality of snow in Ohio. Two days before my 19^th Birthday, it snowed two feet! I truly thought I’d die. How could people survive that amount of snow?! And, as I was informed, I needed to prepare myself for even more snow. Sheesh!!

            Well, I managed to tough out that first winter, trudging through the snow on the OSU campus. I wasn’t wild about it, but I was definitely educated about this new season to my still young mind. Mind over matter was another lesson – you dealt with the cold and snow to understand why people stayed in the northern situations.

            For my reasons, I did move back to Texas at one point. It was March and warm in Texas. Let’s face it, I was a Texan. I got a job, got an apartment and decided to stay. My mother was elated that I was “home.” My brother and I got to know each other again, which was kind of nice.

            Because I had lived in a different state (and, I don’t mean the “state of confusion”), my volatile brain had expanded beyond the state of Texas. Weather or attitudes. I went back to Ohio – cold weather and all.

            I would go to Texas, but only to visit.

            Because I so enjoyed the colder climate for winters, I have lived in Brooklyn, NY, Detroit, MI, Alexander, VA and Zweibruecken, Germany (West Germany, at the time), as well as Columbus, OH.

Now, I reside in Alton Bay, NH, since 2007 (the time in NH since 2002). Which is probably even colder than Germany at times! Germany always seemed colder because they measure in Celsius. I believe that Mother Nature has decided to remind all the Global Warming advocates that there is still a lot of Global Cold. She can be very persuasive in her methods – in my humble opinion.