Ok, snow fans, I thought I'd post this picture for you so you can begin your euphoric glee fest before the first flake falls (nice alliteration, don't you think?). Could that be, the First Flake Fall Fest? I've never really understood how anyone over the age of eleven could be excited about snow and its many evils. Of course, I understand the farmers and their thirst for water (nice phrase, huh?) since it can mean a great deal to them in terms of crop yield and, ultimately, money, but what excuse could a city dweller have for wanting to see a blanket of white covering everything? There is another one of those sentences that start out as a statement and end up as a question. How is it that I can continue to write those? Anyway, going on.
Of course, the first snow is very beautiful and serene, but that soon fades when you have to drive somewhere and you discover you can't stop at the first stop sign you come to. After that, the novelty has worn off and the panic that you had repressed throughout the summer returns with a vengeance and engulfs you in its icy fingers. As you drive, you hear other drivers echoing the same chant you have screamed many times - WHY DO I LIVE HERE????? Well, you can list all the positives of living in Idaho Falls, like low crime, low population, low expectations, low wages, lowing of cattle, lower education, low down dirty rotten scoundrels, Lerner and Lowe musicals, low cost of living - HAH!, low riders, low slung britches, ....... wait, wasn't I supposed to be listing the positives of living her. I guess I should stop this attempt at humor and really list the reasons people live here. Like, ...................................well, there is...........................no, really, I can list some things. For instance there is........................................and....................................ok, so I'm having a bit of a problem listing some of the many reasons we live here. This time of year, as we prepare for winter, it is difficult to remember why we live here. But, there really are a myriad of reasons, just none of them come to me right now. Actually, that isn't completely true. We live in one of the greatest places to live in the world.....nine months out of the year. The other three are not so great.
For the skiers, snowmobilers, and other lobotomy candidates, winter is a welcome respite from the beautiful weather we have here during the spring, summer and fall. Those masochistic masses that look forward to cold, wet, gray, ....did I mention cold?.......nasty weather love this time of year. Go figure! I, for one, don't, in case you hadn't picked up on that yet. But, we endure and eventually, we get through and find ourselves back to the happiness spring brings and we forget, for another season, the ravages of winter. We forget our rants, our pledges to find a decent place to live, our promises to ourselves to never spend another winter here, the frozen feet and hands, the slipping and sliding, the falls, the misery that is winter, and we go on, thinking that next year, maybe winter won't be so bad. Yeah, right.
So, those of you, who read this, who don't have to suffer those maladies of winter, will look at this picture and think how beautiful the snow is. Those of us who had to endure last winter's ravages, recognize it for what it really is, a pain in the patute! That's all I'll say about that....at least for now.
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