“The smallest snowstorm on record took place an hour ago in my back yard. It was approximately two flakes. I waited for more to fall, but that was it…”
– Richard Brautigan, ‘Tokyo-Montana Express’
To be completely honest, I can’t remember what I like most about winter.
My goal this morning, however, was to write about a few of my favorite things during this dreary season. Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, for example. Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes. Silver white winters that melt into spring…
But winters are no longer silver white, or any kind of white. I’m not sure who to blame, for the fact that winter has become the color of dead grass and weeds. I saw a couple of kids yesterday trying to sled on a little grassy hill, and a tear came to my eye.
Someone should get the blame. But who? That’s another thing I can’t remember.
Am I just getting old, or has the world become more complicated?
The reports from the climate scientists have been predicting that, soon, winter will vanish completely, and we will have summer all year long. This might seem attractive to school teachers, who get the summers off, but how about the rest of us?
Looking out my window this morning, either the climate scientists know what they’re talking about, or else I slept right through January and February.
Maybe I could write “What I Like Most About Summer”? Which is, basically, that it’s not winter. But if we no longer have winters, then my “Summer” essay would be very short. And I try to write at least 500 words, whenever I write one of these columns. (They pay me ‘by the word.’ How do you get paid?)
This town’s economy depends partly on people engaging in winter sports. Skiing, snowmobiling, snowball fights, shoveling the driveway, sliding off the road. Winter sports, like that.
In years past, the big problem with winter sports has been that they happened in the winter. But now, I guess they will have to take place in the summer. That poses a completely different set of problems.
I made an oblique reference at the beginning of this column to a song written by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein for their 1959 musical, The Sound of Music.. Not too oblique, I hope. The song is, of course, ‘My Favorite Things’ and it’s sung by a young nun who’s getting kicked out of a convent, I think in Austria, and I suppose, based on the lyrics, she’s looking out the window at a silver white winter as it melts into spring. Austria was once known for that type of weather.
In the original Broadway production, the nun (Maria) was played by actress Mary Martin, and in the popular screen version, by Julie Andrews, who won a Golden Globe award for her performance. But not an Oscar. She got her Oscar for Mary Poppins, which took place, as far as I can tell, during kite-flying season. So maybe fall time?
Mary Martin didn’t live to see what has now happened to winter, but I think Julie Andrews is still alive. I wonder if she has found different ‘favorite things’ to sing about? No doubt her voice is not quite the same. But neither is mine.
They taught me in school that no two snowflakes are ever alike. Now, I will probably never be able to prove them wrong.