Add Photo to Journal
|
|
| Photo Credit: Joan V. Miller (Now Joan V. Imdorf) |
| Big sis, Christine, holds me on a sled in early December, 1959. |
I need to say a word or two about the weather. There are far more learned scientists who could discuss the current weather patterns with greater empirical certainty than I can; meaning they conduct experiments and gather long-term data that they can rely on for evidence. So just call this the ramblings of one Midwestern gardener.
My line of thinking arose from the need to title another piece I’ve been working on about creating a bed at my new house in central Ohio, but I wasn’t sure whether to call it a “late fall bed installation” or an “early winter bed installation.” Bear with me for a minute while I tumble into the clichéd stories of chest-high snowdrifts that I had to walk through as a child to get to school… It was colder and snowier when I was growing up in northeast Ohio. And yes, I did walk to elementary school – but it was just up the street, about eight or so houses away. I was able to come home for lunch in the early years, before a tragic accident with another youngster necessitated all of the neighborhood kids piling on a bus and riding around for 45 minutes to get to a school that was within a five-minute walk. But I digress. We built snow forts and igloos and skated on Pleasant Acres Lake across the street. I remember many walks through Somers’ Woods, seeing very little peeking up through the snow except fallen beech branches or a few ratty-looking ferns. We went sled riding on Fochs’ Hill and got mighty cold over long hours of fun. You could always count on a white Thanksgiving, let alone a white Christmas. The first snow usually arrived just on the coattails of a blustery Halloween. My father and I always seemed to put up the Christmas decorations in the snow. Our almost acre-long driveway had to be shoveled, and that became the bane of my existence when I was in high school. The year of my 18th birthday, in February, my folks were on an extended Caribbean cruise and I had to shovel out driveway drifts easily 2-3 feet high.
|