First Snow
The season’s first snow fell in the Upper Valley yesterday. Puffy flakes blanketed the twigs and grass, turning dry prairies into fields of cotton. My kids bundled up and tossed their first snowballs. The wet packing snows of November will soon give way to the fairy dust that makes skiing so great and snowmen scarce.
Having grown up back East, I love Westerners attitude toward snow. They delight in it. Welcome it. Snow is not something to fear and curse like it is in Ohio. No armada of salt trucks is sent to attack the covered streets, turning the white hush into slop. Here, the snowplow drivers relax by the fire until at least four inches have fallen. Then they plow, piling up drifts on the roadside while leaving enough snow on the street to keep drivers happy. Idahoans have grown up skiing and snow mobiling so they welcome the car’s glide around a snowy corner. When they sense a tire slipping, they don’t, like Ohioans, pump the breaks and crank the steering wheel with bug-eyed looks of desperation as if their vehicle had suddenly been possessed.
The weathermen in Idaho don’t speak in grave tones when forecasting a snowstorm. Nor do they exhale with relief, “whew, it missed us this time,” when the forecast is wrong. Instead, with snow on the horizon, their eyes glisten with excitement and they suppress a belly laugh, knowing they’ll call in sick tomorrow so they can hit the slopes.
Idahoans pray for snow. Four years of drought have emptied the reservoirs and strained farmers’ nerves. I asked an old sheep rancher whether this winter would bring the deep snows. He shook his head, unknowing, and recounted what a Native American tribe used to say. “Lots of snow this year. White man cut and stack lots of wood.”