Saturday, January 02, 2010

Me and Snow

I never saw any snow until I was seven years old. We'd moved from the low country of Georgia to Atlanta at the beginning of my second year of grammar school. Soon after we arrived at the house my parents rented (not far from downtown Decatur) I saw my first hard frost. At first I thought it was snow. I asked my mom if it was snow and she explained what frost was. It was still a new and exciting thing for me to see.

A couple of weeks later it really did snow. When I was a kid the Atlanta area would get at least one or two heavy snowfalls each winter. To this day, my favorite sound in all the world is that of fresh snow crunching underfoot. But it doesn't snow very often these days in Atlanta. (You folk who discount global warming go fuck yourselves.) Now if so much as an errant snowflake finds itself in the Atlanta area it makes the national news.

From our X-mas tree hunt this year. That's Peach Orchard Mountain in the distance, where our property is located.

But when I was a kid every winter would bring snow. Enough so that my parents bought me a sled. I used that sled so much that I broke it and they had to buy me a new one. By the time I had completed the sixth grade my parents uprooted us again and we headed south to Macon and I never saw snowfall again until I was in high school and we were living in the north Georgia mountains.

When Carole and I retire, we're hoping to build a house on the property her dad left her in the mountains of North Carolina just south of the Virginia border. The land sits at 4,000 feet above sea level and that entire part of the state gets quite a lot of snow each winter. I want to live where there is actually a winter season. I enjoy seeing snow. I never got tired of playing in it. One of these days, I would like to think that I'll live in a spot where I can look forward to experiencing a real winter again.

Hopefully, Carole and I will have our cabin on the mountain behind me.

As I write this (01-01-2010), the forecast for much the North Carolina mountains calls for snow eight out of the next nine days. I can't recall the last time that happened here in the state. And, of course, I'm stuck working here in Charlotte for the duration.

3 comments:

Tracy said...

I love snow. I spent 5 of my teen years in New England and I treasured the winters. Husband isn't so much a snow person, so I will never live in an area that gets it regularly. For me it is a rare treat, when I visit it or every six or eight years it finds its way to the coast for a day or two.

stan said...

I really enjoy your blog about hiking and the outdoors. I also live in Matthews and enjoy getting to the local high country. Your entry this week encouraged me to run end-to-end in Crowders State Park yesterday; very beautiful. I assume you are the Mr. Smith who posts on summitpost? Happy mountaineering to you.

James Robert Smith said...

Tracy: I don't know how I'd feel about snow if I had to deal with it every day of the winter. I hear it gets old really fast. But I never had a chance to get tired of it.

Stan: Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy the blog. There's nothing more fun to me than hiking on a mountain. Yep! That's me on summitpost! You're a runner, eh? I hear the ridge line trail is open all the way from Crowders Mountain to the SC border now. I need to hike it now that it's completed.