"Snow?"

White stuff, comes from the sky in the winter. Piles up, makes driving difficult, you can slip on it and fall on your @. Never seen it before?

Well, one person I lived with for several months never did. She was from Australia; exactly what part I don’t know, but it was one of those parts that never sees snow. We showed her how to make snow angels and she asked us to photograph her so she could show them to her parents who, I suppose, had (a) never seen snow and/or (b) had never seen their grown daughter lying in the snow flapping her arms and laughing.

Each of our cats had its “first snow” experience. The stuff would fall overnight and we’d let the critter out in the morning, where it would romp around in the backyard for a while, then come in and stretch out before the nearest radiator.

I was thinking about this the other night while walking over to the newspaper. Or maybe driving; I forget. Anyway, it was in the context of my cruise three weeks ago and what this snow, sleet and ice would be like for the average citizen of the sunny Caribbean. How would those people handle it?

We, rather unconsciously, walk differently when there are a couple inches of snow on the sidewalk. We can spot the slight differences in regular snow, packed snow, snow that might have ice under it; our Carib friends would be flat on their backs, no doubt calling down the wrath of their island gods upon us and our weather.