frozen memories

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 soft flakes are falling…

again.

it's so beautiful. i don't think i could ever get tired of watching snow falling. i suppose if i had to experience 5 or 6 months of winter the whole snow thing would get old… but here in the south… it's still so novel every time it snows.

it brings back memories of my childhood, growing up in the fox valley in wisconsin. brrrrrrr.

we used to get snow that would drift up in a swirl beside our back door and we'd have to go out our front door so we could dig out the back door.

just around the block was the ice skating rink at the bottom of the hill of the elementary school next door. we would bundle up, walk over to the rink and skate across the bumpily ice. no zambonis for the neighborhood rink. but we didn't care. we'd sit on the snowbanks around the rink and adjust our skates. i always wanted the big pom poms for my laces… but never seemed to have a pair. we'd play crack the whip and a million other games. few moms or dads were there to watch over us. this was the early 70s when kids actually went out to play… without a parental entourage. 

the thought to leave was always way after we were frozen. the walk home in our ice skates was like walking on ice picks… so we'd take our skates off and walk home in our layers of wool socks.

our basement door was directly across from our back door. easy for mom to open both doors and herd our snow-crusted bodies downstairs where we would divest ourselves of our gear, pick off the chunks of snow stuck to our wool socks and mittens and throw everything in the dryer.

as we listened to the click click click of the zippers bouncing around in the dryer, we'd rub our numb feet and sometimes cry as the feeling would return. pins and needles on steroids.

when the feeling would return to our fingers, we'd raid the upright freezer and eat frozen christmas cookies. or the stash of whatever cookies mom had stored away.

weeks later we'd hear a "dammit… who's been eating all the cookies down here?" as if she didn't know.