Snow

I love snow. Most people I know talk about snow like it’s some kind of infestation or something. Gotta call the exterminator with the big truck and the plow blade. Spread salt over the parking lot to keep it from growing back.

I know it causes a lot of inconvenience – I had to spend forty-five minutes this morning shoveling it out of my driveway before I could move my car. Then I spent another fifteen minutes shoveling later this afternoon when I got my car stuck in our friend Candace’s still-unshoveled driveway (Candace drives a 4X4 and scoffs at snow shovels like Chuck Norris scoffs at “humane” mousetraps). But I love snow.

The accumulation here last night was about fourteen inches. This made Cindy wildly happy; in the two-and-a-half years she’s lived in El Dorado Springs there has been a total of about 3 inches of snow until last night. Now that she’s a teacher I think she likes snow days even more than she did when she was a student. She was exuberant when they cancelled school.

Also, since I’m a youth pastor, a snow day is a great excuse to get out and go sledding or snowball fighting “to build relationships with the students.” And go sledding we did. There’s a great sledding hill off First Street at the southwestern corner of town. It’s long and steep enough to be fun, but not so long that you’re completely exhausted after hauling your sled back uphill. Alex, one of our youth group guys, took charge of building a snow ramp halfway down the hill. He piled snow, packed it down, piled, and packed. After he’d groomed it for half an hour or so, it was a very cool sledding jump. It actually got a little scary. Some of the people there were afraid to try it at first. It took a little bit to work up the nerve. Then it was off down the hill, and no going back. As long as an intrepid sledder leaned back just before hitting the ramp, he would sail about five or six feet off the ground, pondering just for an instant his own mortality before coming back to earth with a “whump,” a spray of white powder, and a whoop of delight. Invariably this resulted in snow down the collar, in the face, up the pant leg, and anywhere else. But back up the hill we all went, grinning and impatient to try it again. And the best kind of sled to use was the round disc variety – no way to steer, no way to keep from spinning around. Even though it was messy and we were all a bit sore later, we’re doing it again tomorrow!








See Aaron's blog for more pics of this snowfall.