I was born in Augusta, Georgia and I never saw snow until I was 8 years old. Snow in Augusta is super rare.
If you are not from Augusta you may know it only because it hosts the Master's Tournament every April. Golfers view it like a holy place. The weather is always very mild from about September to May, then the summers are usually sweltering.
I moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, and experienced snow for the first time within a few weeks of moving, in January 1971. [see photo below; click to make it bigger]
My brother and I had a blast, throwing snowballs, sledding, and making snowmen. We had never experienced snow and it was glorious.
Sometime that winter, or perhaps it was the next winter, my parents took us up to Ober Mountain to try snow skiing. I remember standing at the top of the "bunny" slope, looking down, and refusing to try. None of us wanted to snow ski. We were water skiing people, but not snow skiing. One rarely breaks a leg or gets a concussion while water skiing...
However, playing in the snow was a lot of fun for me, for years.
I was reminded of all my snow fun yesterday. Here in Atlanta, it rarely snows. Maybe once every 5 years we will have a snowy day and there will be some accumulation. Yesterday we awoke to several inches of wet snow.
My son -- now 28 years old -- was born in Kazakhstan. It's a large country just to the South of Russia. Winters are long and severe. I went there in March of 2007 to adopt him and there was a LOT of snow everywhere. I had never seen so much snow. Photo below, a street in Petropavlovsk.
My son was 10 when I adopted him. He spent a lot of time in the snow, his first ten winters. He told me last night that he really missed snow. I smiled, remembering him in Kazakhstan when we first met. It seemed like a really foreign world to me, however, because now that I'm grown, I don't play any more.
I don't even like to walk outside when it snows. Too much chance of falling.
Michael had a lot of fun yesterday afternoon in the snow. We had not seen snow like that in years.
Left, the snow people he made.
He said last night he might like to live somewhere that gets snow a lot more often.
I cannot picture myself spending my final years in a place like that. I also really hate the idea of him living far away from me in my final years...
I gently suggested he save his money for a winter vacation somewhere that offers winter ski vacation packages, like Idaho or Montana.
He learned to snowboard a few years ago, and loved it. I am happy for him to do anything outdoors. He loves being outdoors.
I will happily wave at him from my chair, warm and cozy, and INSIDE.
The snow will be gone tomorrow, as usual.
Stay warm, everyone.
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