We just had the sixth worst snowstorm in our area’s history. The one I remember best, though, is the second worst, the blizzard of January 1996. The schools had just reopened following Christmas break, but had to close again when a nor’easter hit New York with three feet of snow. Then it rained, the snow started to melt, the temperature plummeted, and everything froze solid. Son was in the fifth grade, and he and his friends played ice hockey on the elementary school baseball field. I still have the pictures. They look for all the world like they’re rolling on an outdoor rink with a school and ranch houses in the background. As I took photos of him and his pals careening past first base with their hockey sticks raised triumphantly in the air, the look of pure joy and amazement on Son’s face said, “It doesn’t get better than this, does it?”
Perhaps not, as far as childhood memories go. Son is in Mexico now with Girlfriend, so he isn’t here to witness the weather replay from his youth. Then again, I’m not in Puerto Vallarta to witness his sun-kissed face saying, “It doesn’t get better than this, does it?” so who’s to say where memory ends and reality begins. Daughter, already on her school break as a city kindergarten teacher, is snowed into her Manhattan high-rise with impassable streets, stranded buses, and canceled subways below her. The evening news showed two hardy souls cross-country skiing on a deserted Fifth Avenue. Meanwhile, Husband and I, both battling illnesses, awoke from a wild night of howling winds and flying garbage pails to the picturesque yet nauseating sight of our cars in the driveway submerged in snow up to their wheel wells.
The biggest casualty of the storm was Husband’s male pride. For some guys it’s their lawn, for others it’s their tool room or their car or their mechanical whatever; for Husband it’s a pristine driveway free of snow and ice, side to side and end to end. When the white stuff begins to fall, his mouth says, “Oh, shoot, snow,” but his snappy gait as he heads out the door bundled up like the Donner party says, “SNOW! Let me at it!” He pulls up the garage door to reveal several different shovels for various aspects of attack and removal, a snowblower for straight-on warfare, and buckets of salt and sand he uses like sprinkles on a sundae. This is Husband’s turf and he presides over it like the Snow King of Tundra Mountain.
Except for this storm we were both the sick snow puppies of pajama hill. Deciding to see just how impossible it would be if we tried, we put on layers of clothes and headed out to at least push the snow off the cars. I took a few steps and despite my weeks-long congestion and misery, being submerged in the snow up to my hips made me yelp like a kid at play. “Hey! Look at me!” I called to Husband who was leaning on a shovel in the garage. “You can’t see my legs!” He looked at me from under his woolen hat and wraparound Ray Charles sun goggles with a weak smile that said, “I see you, and I see where we are. We’re in purgatory.” I swam over to him in the snow.
OSV: Okay, we’re not going to be able to do this ourselves. We’re going to have to hire some of the kids who come by who we always turn away because it’s your domain. Don’t feel bad, sweetie. It’s just this once.
HUSBAND: What if no one comes by?
OSV: They always come by. Let’s see what the first ones charge and we’ll make our decision who to hire. Just don’t let them know how desperate we are.
Husband’s scarf nodded weakly. Two strapping youngsters with shovels appeared at the end of our driveway.
KIDS: Need your driveway shoveled, sir?
HUSBAND: Desperately.
To prove it, he gave them $10 over what they asked. They couldn’t have been happier if they were on skates.
Daughter’s Fotos are from An Island Now Peopled at chashama
butterfinger
roar
face in the wings
feathers