White Christmas

This isn't how we planned to spend Christmas this year. My Lady Love and I are sequestered in our cozy little nest while a raging blizzard blocks all the exits. We were scheduled to attend Christmas Eve services at our church last night. It is always a very special service, with a candlelight segment, and I always enjoy blasting out the high notes when we sing the Lord's Prayer. Because of the weather, the church cancelled all of the services. Then, today we had planned to travel to our daughter's home and celebrate with her family. Not to be. Instead, we occasionally look out the window and watch the snow blowing around, knowing that we won't be going anywhere until the storm stops and we can dig ourselves out. It is easy to feel sorry for yourself, but I can't help noticing how absolutely spellbinding the landscape is outside our window. Everything is fresh and clean, with no trace at all of the dirty slush that filled our streets just a couple of days ago. We should enjoy this pristine, wild beauty while we can.



You guys all know that I am an old fogey, don't you? Well, let me tell you about the Big Blizzard of 1947, a storm that would dwarf this current storm by somewhat. I was about eight years old, and we had rented a farm house that was located in the center of a section of land. A section is a measurement of land that encompasses 640 acres, and each side of the square is one mile long. Since we were in the center, the lane to our house was one-half mile long. My brother and I had to walk this lane every day to catch the school bus. I remember that the temperature was so cold that if we wanted to go outside, we had to wear about all the clothes we owned, or at least several layers, with a dishtowel wrapped around our face leaving only our eyes exposed, and a couple of pairs of Dad's heavy work socks for mittens. The snow was so deep that it covered all the fences, and the wind blew a big drift against the south side of the corn crib. My brother and I were able to climb to the very peak of the roof and slide back down on a piece of a pasteboard box. I don't think Mom knew what we were doing, or I'm sure she would have had a fit. Our car, a 1932 Chevy coupe, was buried to within a few inches of the top of the roof, and the inside was completely packed full of snow. The house itself was slightly more than a shack, and I remember that the wind blew snow through the windows and made little drifts on our bed. We had a pot-bellied heating stove in the living room and a wood burning stove in the kitchen to cook on. To keep warm at all, you had to keep very close to the stove. We certainly didn't have much money during those times, but we had novel ways to keep food on the table. Before the storm, Dad would set traps and snares around the house and would catch rabbits and squirrels (and an occasional skunk or opossum). Since we didn't have a refrigerator, he would hang the carcasses from nails around the edge of the porch, where they would freeze and be preserved. I remember that when the storm came, the pheasants that had hunkered down to keep warm poked their heads up out of the snow. This was a Bonanza for my hunter-gatherer father, who just had to grab the bird by the neck, give it a little twist and add it to the critters hanging around the edge of our porch. There were huge drifts, ten or twelve feet high, on the county road in front of our house, and it was about a week before they were able to open it up. The farmer we rented from eventually brought over his tractor and scoop and dug out our lane. Finally our life could slowly get back to normal. Ah, the good old days!!

Merry Christmas, and may God bless every one of you.
Grandpa Ron