I don't get this New England weather...whether or not it is global warming or simply a lack of memory from my earlier life...but to go from "almost spring mud-luscious melting pools of goo" to below zero at sundown and black ice, is just Evil. Today: we aren't getting the predicted 24'' in "The Worcester Hills" (Gardner), but, we ARE getting this mix of heavy snow/melting rain/dirty slush piled up.Piled up and still coming down...
When I was a kid, winter weather was bad but predictable. I can remember that "snow days" didn't just mean no school and sledding and building forts with my friends. They meant getting up in the dark, as the factory whistle blew its bellow throughout our town, annoucing school closure. It meant hand-made oatmeal in a huge pot on the stove, and bowls up to the brim, with just enough space left for a splash of milk and some brown sugar on top. Oatmeal that Mom and Nana cooked, earlier than our own rising. Oatmeal we all dreaded--that bloaty feeling might have warmed us up and fueled us for the snow-shoveling extravaganza we had to deal with--but which always gagged me and made me feel weighed down. The hot chocolate chaser was the reason to rise. It, too, made the old way, from real cocoa powder and hot milk, delicious--as long as there was no skin on the top...I hated that "skin". So did my siblings. We'd quick, suck the steaming stuff down, before the coating of "skin" could form, scalding our tongues in the process. What irony--about to enter the deep-freeze with scalded tongues!
Mom and Nana would remind us how some kids were waking up to factory jobs and no breakfast and how we should be thankful. We were, deep down. (Mostly for the school day off.) Thankful for the few hours of freedom which came after the snow shoveling and homework checks and getting our clothes ready for "tomorrow".
Button checks. Zipper checks. Ironed pleats and hems and cuffs. Collars without rings or wear and tear. Spotless undies. Shoes polished. Sweaters without holes or with holes mended...We were a family that entered the world "representing". (What? I'm still unsure...) Before jeans and frayed hems; before tee-shirts and tennies; long before hoodies and yoga pants. Not yet uniformed at school, but with family dress-codes that were far more strictly enforced, we dressed. So, before the next day's departure, we checked and laid out our school clothes. Then, we were "free".
The snow removal itself was an ongoing contest of wills: between the city snow- plows and our own efforts. We had a long, wide-at-one-end driveway, and a front walk that ran all the way to the road. Both would take hours to shovel, only to finish and find the city plows had pushed the street debris into the driveway and front path, effectively blocking both.
"The mailman can't get to the porch!" was a cry we dreaded.
"Your Father won't be able to get into the driveway when he gets home!" was the second clarion call.
So, off we went, out in cycles. Two or three kids to a shift. Sometimes Nana joining us--though we knew it wasn't good for her heart. (Mom has "memories" of shoveling with us, but they are false. Her role in the family was strictly 'inside the house'. Maybe she wanted to join us. Maybe her imagination allowed her to join us. In the recent weather, she has helped Dad "clear the macadam"--after youngest brother snow-blows. It is a matter of scraping remnants off to aid the melt--but it is NOT shoveling in the truest sense.)The truth of the matter is that we kids did the shoveling. Dad when he was home, too. But mostly, it was a "kids chore". Expected. Nagged until completed. Still guilt-tripped and "watched" from an upstairs window. Quality controlled to the point of neurosis...
(I'm told, however, that for thirty-years or so, Dad would allow no one but himself to snow-blow. As he has aged, in the last year, he now allows Kevin to take over--though Ann and I would gladly do it. Instructions, in Sharpie, on duct tape, run across the front of the blower--just in case. They have been pointed out to me numerous times. However, I have yet been allowed to make use of them...) Instead, I'm handed an orange shovel and then told I "don't do it right" by my sibs...
As we got into our teens, my memories of the shovel and salt-on-the-walk blur. Perhaps both brothers were old enough and rugged enough to take over for "the girls". Instead, memories of walking to High School, in legs only cloaked in panty-house and slip-on boots, skirts hiked high, fashionable ( But cold!) coats, and uncovered heads, no mittens, were the norm. Oh how I hated those days before girls were allowed to wear pants to school! When (finally) jeans were okayed, they were only allowed once a week, in our family...However, with five teen-agers, parents often lost count. By the time my youngest brother was at Gardner High, he got away with wearing pretty much whatever he wanted. For me, for three years, though, it was mini-skirts and panty-hose and legs smarting and reddened by those frosted mornings I hurried past Simplex Time Recorder factory, up the hill to Elm Street, and sought the warmth of Gardner High.
When I stopped wearing glasses and upgraded to my first hard contacts, there was the added discomfort of tears freezing and eyelids sometimes stuck by the time I made it to my first class. Oh High School, for girls, was a constant fashion-test and comfort battleground! The cold only added to the challenge.
Sometimes, in California, on camping trips, in the rain, when a fire couldn't be struck, or jackets were soggy in the wind, I would pull inner resources from my early days and remember what REAL cold felt like. Today, I don't have to dream. Today, one step outside, it confronts me, all too readily.
I pick up the shovel. I face the driveway (and my two aging siblings), already moving the slush. There is no avoiding it.
My cowgirl boots, however, are under my bed...a few pebbles from the desert still stuck to their soles. Ready for escape. Always.
When I was a kid, winter weather was bad but predictable. I can remember that "snow days" didn't just mean no school and sledding and building forts with my friends. They meant getting up in the dark, as the factory whistle blew its bellow throughout our town, annoucing school closure. It meant hand-made oatmeal in a huge pot on the stove, and bowls up to the brim, with just enough space left for a splash of milk and some brown sugar on top. Oatmeal that Mom and Nana cooked, earlier than our own rising. Oatmeal we all dreaded--that bloaty feeling might have warmed us up and fueled us for the snow-shoveling extravaganza we had to deal with--but which always gagged me and made me feel weighed down. The hot chocolate chaser was the reason to rise. It, too, made the old way, from real cocoa powder and hot milk, delicious--as long as there was no skin on the top...I hated that "skin". So did my siblings. We'd quick, suck the steaming stuff down, before the coating of "skin" could form, scalding our tongues in the process. What irony--about to enter the deep-freeze with scalded tongues!
Mom and Nana would remind us how some kids were waking up to factory jobs and no breakfast and how we should be thankful. We were, deep down. (Mostly for the school day off.) Thankful for the few hours of freedom which came after the snow shoveling and homework checks and getting our clothes ready for "tomorrow".
Button checks. Zipper checks. Ironed pleats and hems and cuffs. Collars without rings or wear and tear. Spotless undies. Shoes polished. Sweaters without holes or with holes mended...We were a family that entered the world "representing". (What? I'm still unsure...) Before jeans and frayed hems; before tee-shirts and tennies; long before hoodies and yoga pants. Not yet uniformed at school, but with family dress-codes that were far more strictly enforced, we dressed. So, before the next day's departure, we checked and laid out our school clothes. Then, we were "free".
The snow removal itself was an ongoing contest of wills: between the city snow- plows and our own efforts. We had a long, wide-at-one-end driveway, and a front walk that ran all the way to the road. Both would take hours to shovel, only to finish and find the city plows had pushed the street debris into the driveway and front path, effectively blocking both.
"The mailman can't get to the porch!" was a cry we dreaded.
"Your Father won't be able to get into the driveway when he gets home!" was the second clarion call.
So, off we went, out in cycles. Two or three kids to a shift. Sometimes Nana joining us--though we knew it wasn't good for her heart. (Mom has "memories" of shoveling with us, but they are false. Her role in the family was strictly 'inside the house'. Maybe she wanted to join us. Maybe her imagination allowed her to join us. In the recent weather, she has helped Dad "clear the macadam"--after youngest brother snow-blows. It is a matter of scraping remnants off to aid the melt--but it is NOT shoveling in the truest sense.)The truth of the matter is that we kids did the shoveling. Dad when he was home, too. But mostly, it was a "kids chore". Expected. Nagged until completed. Still guilt-tripped and "watched" from an upstairs window. Quality controlled to the point of neurosis...
(I'm told, however, that for thirty-years or so, Dad would allow no one but himself to snow-blow. As he has aged, in the last year, he now allows Kevin to take over--though Ann and I would gladly do it. Instructions, in Sharpie, on duct tape, run across the front of the blower--just in case. They have been pointed out to me numerous times. However, I have yet been allowed to make use of them...) Instead, I'm handed an orange shovel and then told I "don't do it right" by my sibs...
As we got into our teens, my memories of the shovel and salt-on-the-walk blur. Perhaps both brothers were old enough and rugged enough to take over for "the girls". Instead, memories of walking to High School, in legs only cloaked in panty-house and slip-on boots, skirts hiked high, fashionable ( But cold!) coats, and uncovered heads, no mittens, were the norm. Oh how I hated those days before girls were allowed to wear pants to school! When (finally) jeans were okayed, they were only allowed once a week, in our family...However, with five teen-agers, parents often lost count. By the time my youngest brother was at Gardner High, he got away with wearing pretty much whatever he wanted. For me, for three years, though, it was mini-skirts and panty-hose and legs smarting and reddened by those frosted mornings I hurried past Simplex Time Recorder factory, up the hill to Elm Street, and sought the warmth of Gardner High.
When I stopped wearing glasses and upgraded to my first hard contacts, there was the added discomfort of tears freezing and eyelids sometimes stuck by the time I made it to my first class. Oh High School, for girls, was a constant fashion-test and comfort battleground! The cold only added to the challenge.
Sometimes, in California, on camping trips, in the rain, when a fire couldn't be struck, or jackets were soggy in the wind, I would pull inner resources from my early days and remember what REAL cold felt like. Today, I don't have to dream. Today, one step outside, it confronts me, all too readily.
I pick up the shovel. I face the driveway (and my two aging siblings), already moving the slush. There is no avoiding it.
My cowgirl boots, however, are under my bed...a few pebbles from the desert still stuck to their soles. Ready for escape. Always.
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