This week we had the first appreciable snowfall in over two years. It was good to see it return. It was a bit like seeing a friend for the first time in several years. Immediately familiar after so much passage of time. We had much to catch up on.
As I have mentioned before, I grew up in a northeast Ohio town named Cuyahoga Falls. It sounds a bit like Bedford Falls from the 1946 Frank Capra classic “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Cuyahoga Falls is not nearly as quaint, but all of my childhood memories of Christmas were filmed there. To a child, scanning the sky through their frost covered bedroom window for Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve, it was a place where dreams were made.
The first snowfalls came early in my youth. The first flurries arrived in October and in some cases, continued to make guest appearances as late as April. However, January always seemed to bring the best that Mother Nature could muster. The blizzards of ’77 and ’78 both deposited enough building material to keep our snow forts and associated networks of tunnels intact until the sun rose high enough in March to reduce them to the liquid state.
I still have fond memories of building a luge run in our backyard with my brother. The course, illuminated only by the porch light, would provide hours of thrills until my mother would finally call us in. I remember being careful not to let my chin touch the metal of the runner sleds rudimentary steering system as I saw how fast a hocker from my congested sinuses instantly froze solid. No triple dog dare required here. Long before Scott Schwartz’s infamous challenge, I knew the dangers of subzero metal meeting skin.
No, my love affair with snow far predates my hormones seeking other pursuits of the heart. To this day, the first sight of snow creates an instantaneous increase in my pulse. As if she herself had not already looked outside, I always end out excitedly shouting to my true love “Look Hon, it’s snowing!” Her reply seldom reflects the same infatuation I have with the clusters of ice crystals slowly making their voyage from the heavens to earth.
There may be no other musical composition that better captures the beauty of what is now an inconsistent seasonal visitor than the aptly named “Snowfall” by Claude Thornhill. Unfortunately, this beautiful song is seldom heard these days. Then again, there is not much of a following anymore for music that was popular when music was streamed through the yellow glow of a vacuum tube. This is probably just another indicator that I was born a couple of generations late.
As we face a very non-traditional Christmas, I find myself dearly hanging onto my childhood memories. There is comfort in knowing what once was, can in fact, return. It can never be the same. Time never gives us the opportunity to duplicate circumstances. However, we can carry the same spirit within our hearts.
As I set up my Lionel train this weekend, the same wonder I felt as a child when our first train arrived under the tree will return. Even if it lasts just an instant, I will have hope for a more traditional Christmas next year.
