Aw … it didn’t happen. We waited with eager anticipation, at least my wife, the Admiral, and daughters did, but no snow. It tried, there were flakes flying about, but not in Fairhope, not at our house, not this time. In the background you can hear me cheering.

I don’t like snow. There was a time I enjoyed it. In the distant past, I looked forward to the first heavy snow of the year so I could strap on the cross country skis and go wild, exploring the back country. It was a great time. I was never into snow machines, but playing with the kids when they were little in the white fluff was wonderful. Somewhere over the past 15 years, I began to slowly hate the stuff.

I guess it was the driving that first got me. You would think that in a place like Alaska there would be no “re-learning curve” at the beginning of every winter, but there was. Due to military and the oil industry, Alaska has a large transient population most of whom have never driven in the snow and have to learn at their own expense. I tried to stay home from work the first snow fall of the year, but it seldom happened. I had to take my chances with the overconfident amateurs who thought that four-wheel-drive meant they could drive as fast as they wanted to and that they could stop on a dime. They learned — the hard way.

I got sick, sick, sick of shoveling the stuff. After I got home from skiing 15 or 20 miles, I would have to clear the drive and walk ways. I usually got this done early before I had to leave for work, which meant that when I got home in the evening, the snow plows had cleared the street and left a berm across my driveway that had to be cleared to be able to get in. This meant I got to shovel it twice, and the city snow plow packed the stuff to a consistency just this side of concrete on any hardness scale. Boy, we’re having fun now.

I can only remember one time that they called off school there because of snow. It was when it dropped four feet of snow in 36 hours. My neighbor and I were taking hourly turns all day Sunday and Monday snow blowing our driveways. I would work for an hour doing his and mine, then go in to warm up while he took his turn. We had to do this every hour or we would never be able to dig out. I promise you this: School was never called off for a “maybe” of an inch or two.

I know people here in the South don’t have the experience of driving in snow and there are liability issues, and I know that many, many kids and a lot of adults are disappointed that the white stuff did not come. The Admiral sat the morning with her camera in easy reach hoping for the winter wonderland to develop. All the while I can be heard to mutter, “Oh, please, oh please, oh please don’t snow.” I’m sorry for your disappointment, but I’m happy, because, you see, you don’t have to shovel rain.

David Wilson Atwood is a local freelance writer whose human interest columns offer a unique perspective. He may be contacted at: david@starchasers.us