Watch It Now, Watch It now! Here It Comes!

Yeah, right.

We have heard the weathermen cry wolf so many times, the next blizzard will catch us by surprise. We'll be out in the yard raking leaves in our bikinis and the bodies will be found come spring, when the 27 inches of snow melt.

Of course, tomorrow, the ice will really come. That's because my husband and I have tickets to the play, "Driving Miss Daisy" up in Blue Ridge. We are celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary come the 28th of January, and thought this a good way to start up the celebration.

I love snow. I'm careful who I say that around, because rank strangers will either leap up and yell, "So do I!" and give you a bear hug. OR a rank stranger will give me the evil eye and  mutter curses under their breath.

I've always been told to never speak to a stranger, and I guess that's why.

My childhood was full of snow. Every winter we had some "good" snows, that being two inches or  more. I didn't have to walk up hill both ways in the snow to school, because they called school off.

I do remember in seventh grade it snowed so much and we missed so much school that we had to go to school on a Saturday. I was horrified. I kept waiting for some level-headed adult to say, "Sadly, we cannot do that. It is against the law."

At least we only had to go till noon that day.

Another winter, I think I was in third or fourth grade, the school superintendent called everybody who lived in town and asked for those children to walk to school the next day so it could count as a school day, as we had missed so much already.

There are downsides to living in a small town.

I went to school that day. It was so cold, those old radiators didn't work too well, so we sat in semi-circles around them with our coats and gloves on. I think the entire attendance of third and fourth grade fit in those two little semi-circles in one room. Mrs. Dover read stories to us all day.

Maybe it is childhood selective memory, but I have lots of them of snow in my childhood winters. Snow cream, snowball fights, snowmen, trying to figure out how you could go up the sidewalk to visit a friend without splattering yourself all over said sidewalk, because it was so slick where people had packed the snow down into a hard, solid surface.

I remember one snowy day our oil heater, which was the only heat in our big old house, stopped up. My Daddy was lying on the living room floor in his undershirt with his arm shoved up the stoves innards. He was covered in soot and his hair stood straight up. He was saying words that should be reserved for barrooms. I was trying not to laugh; valuing my life, and all.

It took days for our house to warm up after the heater started working because it was so cold. And of course, there was no such thing as insulation in the walls.

Beds had so many quilts on them, it was a concentrated effort to turn over during the night. And you didn't much want to, as you'd lose your warm spot if you weren't careful.

But I loved it. If ice comes I hope it brings snow too, not wimpy freezing rain. That's just dangerous and no fun. We'll stay home on our mountain, maybe build a fire in the fireplace. I've got flannel and wool and quilts and four cats.

Insulation, the old fashioned kind.