At work a few weeks ago, we got sent out to gather shopping carts. It was cold, windy, and had just begun snowing, and I was in a pretty foul mood about being out there.
A couple of middle-aged customers came out, and apparently one of them was unfamiliar with snow. He stopped in the middle of the parking lot, arms out, looking up, looking really happy. His friend said “Your first snowfall! Aren’t you glad we stopped?” A few of us gathering carts stopped to watch. He shuffled around, picked up handfuls of snow, experimentally tried packing a snowball. I guess snow is amazing when you haven’t seen it every year.
His delight at seeing snow made being out there a little bit easier.
A friend of mine had a similar experience. He was so excited about his first snow, he was running and playing in it. Then he hit an icy spot and broke his nose.
But, for a week afterwards, he was still talking about how great the snow was.
My future Thai wife had never seen snow until on a school break from Hawaii, I took her to the mainland in the month of May, and we went to the top of Sandia Mountain in Albuquerque. There were still large patches and drifts of snow, and we still have the photo I took of her standing in one. That was her first experience. She was 32 at the time.
Another Floridian who’s never really seen snow. It snowed when I was ten, but it wouldn’t even have covered a hobbit’s toeses. We got to go out in the yard and scrape together a snowball, then it was time to go to school. It had all melted by the time school was out.
