Friday, February 10, 2006

That's Snow In Them There Fields

Never try and take your own picture. I was trying to concentrate and stuck my tongue out, as my son does when he's playing basketball. It's obviously a man-trait from my dad's side of the family. And that's not dandruff on my sweater. It's snow!!! There I was in the mid-afternoon, dutifully working away on the phone and using my battlescarred, yet trusty Dell laptop, sitting in my wholesaler's office, on the outskirts of the city, when low and behold, the white stuff began to fall. Thinking quickly and on my feet (as opposed to pondering and sitting comfortably in a chair), I wanted to get myself in the photo as proof that it actually happened, so I snatched up the digital camera and moved swiftly (yes, I often do that as well) from the office to the window in the conference room. Realizing that I was alone in the building, I had no choice but to take the shot. I briefly considered holding today's newspaper up as more proof that it was a "local scoop" but I feared that the paper would block the view of the snow. So, I held the camera steady, then CLICK. OUCH! MY TONGUE IS BLEEDING!!!

Local meteorologists all predicted the event, yet, I believe most of the residents of Arkansas still thought it was nuclear fallout. Maybe even a sign of the end of the world. Even I began to wonder (as I often do) if I would be........"left behind?!" Kidding. They know exactly what it is. Which is precisely why the schools shut down at the very notion of snow and the masses flock to their local grocer, on a frenzied mission to wipe out the inventory of sugar, milk and bread for fear of being trapped at home for days with no staple items. Can you imagine living for 24 hours without your normal intake of hormones, steroids, processed sweets and preservatives? YIKES!

About two hours into the white out, I received a call from a relative in a nearby town who excitedly told me, through an intermittent signal and fuzzy transmission on a cell phone (caused no doubt by the anomalic weather), that there was "blizzarding" going on where he was, some 60 miles southeast of my exact location. Now...I've lived in Colorado and traveled the highways and byways of Wyoming, Western Nebraska and South Dakota in the wintertime and I know "blizzarding" when I see it. And let me tell you that this was no "blizzarding".

But it was SNOW. Large, moist flakes of pure white snow, falling gently in the quiet of a Friday afternoon in the country. It was exciting and it was...Beautiful.

-The Arkanblogger

1 comment:

Bryce said...

You had me laughing! Arkansans certainly don't know what blizzards are. I am thrilled if the public schools close for ANY reason, even a "blizzard" that isn't a blizzard. :-)