Snows of my Childhood

In Chicago today there is a big snowstorm, I am told. Colin says it is thundersnow! I had never heard of thundersnow, and I am exceedingly impressed. It did not snow very often in Eugene, where I grew up. But in response to a recent request, I thought I might write a short posts about what I remember of snow in Eugene. Most of them have to do with the fact that we lived on a huge hill.

Everyone in my family remembers the year that we couldn't drive up the hill with our Christmas groceries, so we brought a sled down to the bottom of the hill and loaded up the groceries on it. It was a very steep hill, though, and the snow was deep enough that the darned paper bags got moist. (Correct me if I'm wrong about whether that was the cause.) The next thing we knew, things were rolling down the hill, every which way. Onions, apples, lemons! Our turkey! Cans of cranberry and pumpkin pie filling! Celery! I don't remember what all there was now, because it was so traumatic, us sliding all over the place on the hill chasing our dinner!

Another time, it was the first time it snowed after I got my driver's license. I knew I wasn't going to make it all the way up the hill, but I slightly misjudged how far up I could go before turning around and parking the car. Next thing I knew my car was sliding backwards! Remember, I had never driven in snow before, so I was pretty horrified to find that the brakes didn't work. Probably the best thing would have been to keep on sliding straight back since it was a quiet street, but I didn't think of that, and instead I turned the wheel and backed into a nearby driveway. Car stopped. Good, so far so good. I pulled out of the driveway--and immediately started sliding sideways. Bounced off the neighbor's truck, but apparently at such a low speed that no damage was done. Finally managed to get straightened out, stopped, and parked. Didn't tell anyone!

One year there was a freezing rain-storm, also fairly rare. It was in spring, too. The magnolia trees were budding, no leaves yet. When we got home in the afternoon, the dogs in the backyard were in a panic. One of the backyard magnolia trees had come crashing down! Fortunately neither of the dogs were hurt and nor was our house. But after that, one fewer magnolia tree.

I remember sledding down our hill. It was just a little too steep to feel safe, which made it especially fun.

Once when I was already in graduate school, I came home for Christmas and there was a wet snowfall that knocked out the power for sometime. Big wet piles of snow were falling off the tall tall trees. My dad and I were shoveling out the driveway, but it seemed dangerous with all those heavy lumps of snow crashing down so fast and loud. For some reason, there were no helmets in sight, so I put a pot on my head and tied it down. Got a picture of that somewhere, but not with me here I think! It was that same snowstorm that stymied the UPS truck. We knew from the tracking number that it was carrying my new laptop. Apparently, though, the young UPS driver had about as much experience with snow driving as I'd had in the above anecdote, and he had more or less the same experience. We watched in horror as the truck (my laptop inside) went up the hill past our house, came sliding back down, turned sideways, slid, tilted alarmingly, came to a shuddering stop. A second UPS person was summoned. They started trying to move the truck, resulting in it tilting even more alarmingly. Just deliver the laptop first, we were all chanting. Eventually they did, looking pretty shaky. We didn't want to embarrass them by commenting, but we saw it all.

Last (this is not properly in Eugene but when we lived out in the country nearby), for my birthday when I was in fourth grade, I had a slumber party with quite a few little girls--maybe something like 10 or 15? It may have been the biggest party I ever had. That night, there was a freak snowstorm, dumping maybe 8-10 inches of snow. It was pretty grand fun when we were making snowmen and stuff, but for some reason there began an epic snow-battle that ended with hard and hurt feelings all around. I don't remember the whys and wherefores, and why we were arguing over it instead of just plastering each other with multiple snowballs as boys would have been doing I suspect. But somehow, something or other WASN'T FAIR! I remember my mom's attempts to mediate the senseless conflict, her saying something like, what's with all this "us" and "them" thinking? But I don't remember anything else about it.

Now I have made it seem like there was actually a lot of snow in Eugene, but the above recollections are pretty much the only times I ever remember it snowing, in 20+ winters spent there. There may have been a couple minor non-stick snowstorms, but those are the only big ones I remember.

My mom tells me that they had some snow this year too, yesterday or the day before; I'm not too sure because the date-line is confusing. When it snows only rarely in a place, there's such a magical feeling when it starts snowing. There is no snow here in Beijing. It was a very clear day but horribly windy and excruciatingly cold. Big whirlwinds of trash and grit and leaves. More on today tomorrow...