I am sitting here on a snowy day in Raleigh. Unable to get to work because 6 inches of snow paralyses the city. A fresh snowfall is always very pretty. Unfortunately the feeling doesn’t last long.
The first time I remember snow was when I was around 6 years old. I was born in Sardinia so I had never seen snow. Living in Rochester PA the winters were cold and I can remember looking out my classroom windows and seeing the Ohio river almost completely frozen over. I never liked winter or snow. As I grew older I was the designated shoveler of snow which really sucked. We lived on a corner and had a lot of sidewalk.
I do have some fond memories of wintertime experiences. My grandparents on my mother’s side had a farm in Butler County. One day my mother got a phone call that grandpa was really sick. My mother was a retired nurse so naturally she was going. At the time she was driving a Corvair which had the motor in the rear. For some reason she took me with her. When we left it was snowing and the further we went the worse the roads got. What usually was an hour drive on back country roads took closer to three hours. When we got to the farm it was almost dark. There was easily a couple of feet of snow on the long gravel drive up to the farm-house. Well mom gunned the engine and drove up the narrow drive and of course the light front of the Corvair lifted straight up in the drifted snow. She was stuck and we were still quite a distance from the farmhouse. My mother undaunted took a blanket and tied it around both of us and slogged the rest of the way with me on her back. I remember looking around and seeing countryside with all that deep snow. It was beautiful. This was in 1957 or 58 long before I was old enough to read Dr Zhivago or see the movie. But when I did it took me back to that night. It was a visceral experience that has never left me.
I Am Franco 