Let it snow (if only for a little while)

Those dreaming of a white Christmas tend to fall into two distinct camps: children, who look forward to

snow with great anticipation, and adults, who face the prospect with a certain pragmatic dread.

Milly Woodward beautifully captured that divergence of sentiment in these pages in a column she penned in winter 1949 – suggesting that grownups who rue the tire chain, the slushy commute and the ballooning heating bill ought not consign themselves to fogeydom quite so readily.

* * * * *

Sunday night’s little flurry of snow had all the youngsters excited.

Our place at Wing Point is very disappointing in that respect, however, because a slight snow is never more than rain so close to the water. Then our three daughters wish they lived further “inland.”

As we drove to Winslow Monday morning, the thin blanket of white that covered the fields in a rather threadbare fashion sent the children into a mood of great excitement. Anticipation of winter’s thrills had them exclaiming about what they’d do if they could get out in the snow.

“Little Toot,” our three-year-old, exclaimed, as we passed a field that was really quite white, “Oh, they’ve had their winter, and we don’t have our winter yet. I wish we’d get our winter! Just look at their winter! Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow....If I could just get out in that snow, I’d gobble it all up!”

I guess I’m getting old, though, because I find myself hoping there won’t be any more snow. Those fuel bills, you know...

However, there is something indefinably exciting about the first snowfall. It lifts all our spirits, I think, even though we hope for continued mild weather.

When I was in college, I had a favorite poem that I have never forgotten. I couldn’t tell you who wrote it without searching through my old notebooks, but I can tell you the poem.

It expresses a feeling that many young people have very strongly – the feeling that they don’t want to lose the joy of living and settle down to a routine existence in spirit as well as body. Whenever I see a fruit tree in bloom, or snow on the ground, I can’t help thinking of this poem and then I remember there are more important things than being practical:

It is not death I fear

Nor that the gold and pearl of the early evening

Will outlast this transient clay,

And cooling shadows cast their lengths into the selfsame mold,

And I not here –

But that, when I am old and calm,

With the quiescence of desires long stilled

And stealthy quenching of youth’s fires,

Evenings will like this

And leave me cold.

When cherry bloom will only mean another canning season,

And the deep, untrodden snow a sidewalk to be swept,

Then will I face the darkness willingly,

And rather choose to sleep a dreamless sleep

Than cross on bridges, streams that I have leaped.

So let the fuel bills mount (it makes the oil delivery people happy, anyway)! Let me shiver under my blankets and wade to the chicken house through slush up to my ankles!

Who cares? I am going to join the “kids” in enjoying what little snow we have...

– Milly Woodward, “The Last Word,”

Bainbridge Island Review, Dec. 15, 1949

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