SNOW DAY
Is there anybody doesn’t love a snow day? All of our lives don’t we long for that magical moment when we were/are told the weather was/is too bad to go to school…or work…or the store even. Snow days are different than sick days or vacation days or holidays. Snow days are bonuses. In fact yesterday, when I informed our employees that we were closing today because of blizzard warnings, the exclamations of joy were louder than on the rare occasions we announce bonuses in the form of money!
Okay…so it’s only 26° with 24 mph winds and less than two inches snow accumulation. By Northome, Minnesota standards (especially back in the day) that’s just a regular winter day–here in Albuquerque it is an Event. It’s obvious why I want to travel in the Arctic isn’t it? Nostalgia. And my REI, Kathmandu and Basecamp outfits and accoutrements. Really, it is wanting to recapture something that can only return in the form of ever-fainter memories–a snowy day serving to jog those memories of kid-time and the little old house in the woods and mom and dad and Robert and wind howling and cinnamon rolls baking and two or three dogs under the table and a couple of stoves blasting direct fire-heat…
Well…darn…already the sun’s creeping out, doesn’t make it any warmer or less windy but spoils the whole effect for me. The closed-in, hunkered-down, reveling-in-coziness effect.
Here’s a hour ago:
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- Puny Albuquerque icicles.
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- But even these make a nice change from regular Albuquerque.
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- Real icicles from an old photo taken out at the old place when I was a kid.
Christmas “decorations” still up at my place!
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- Christmas lights with Patricia’s 20-year-old paper mache snake.
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- Snow day with Christmas lights.
Ghost withstanding the “blizzard.”
Ms. Nesset,
Enjoy your writing so much as my dad was born in Blackduck in 1930 and I live there from 77 to 81 and the name Swan Nesset was quite familiar.
Your prose makes me nostalgic for my youth and a bit tearful and that’s why I know that it is good I love you girl keep it up .
Sincerely,
Kathryn Brown Gilbraith
Hi Kathryn, I loved seeing your comment and have been intending to reply ever since…now it’s almost two months later so afraid I’m a bit tardy. So I was actually born in Blackduck in 1939 (which makes 2019 quite a fearful birthday year!) so your dad and I weren’t so far apart. I’m curious about why the name of Swan Neset was familiar to you. My folks lived up there on our place between Northome and Blackduck most of the time until the mid-late 80s when I started bringing them to New Mexico for the winters. What was your dad’s name and when and where did you live in Blackduck. Sorry I sound kind of nosy but I’ve become so interested in the past and also in ancestry. Anyway thanks so much for your comment. Loved it. Marjorie