People who live in certain latitude zones have four identifiable seasons and know what to expect when. My friend in Alaska sees the first snowflake and reworks her closet and prepares to carry on until next May. The older son lives in Colorado after growing up fifty miles from the Gulf Coast. He was riding the ski lift with a high school girl and casually asked her about “snow days.” She looked puzzled and replied, “We’ve never had one. The buses come and we get on.” For some of us a really cold day is an HAPPENING that requires preparation, survival, and is remembered as a specific event in time that needs retelling. We did go to school after an ice storm when I was in the 6th grade, but we were allowed to stand outside for a short time. Sonny, Ottley, Jane Earl, and I thought the ice particles were to toss at our friends and we were sent to the principal’s office. We missed the math class teaching about tablespoons, teaspoons, pints, quarts, and gallons and I have never completely mastered those relationships.
Anticipation is the mixer that stirs up change. Newspapers and weather stations start a week ahead of time issuing dire predictions of roads blocked in the Mid-West and showing pictures of cars piled up. Insurance and companies that provide heat begin issuing 3 -P warnings: People, Pets, and Pipes. Lines grow in grocery stores for provisions and in hardware stores for plant and pipe coverings. Various shapes of white sculptures are scattered over lawns where greenery once stood. Those who know plan when and how to cut off water to the house and in sprinklers while making sure bathtubs are filled and other sources for drinking and some type of cooking are available. Those who are less environmentally focused are fortunate to have a gas stove in case of power failure. As the temperature drops, your story is formed.
A friend’s children were three days getting home from skiing because of airline problems. Another had pipes in the attic they had forgotten and had a ceiling that dissolved. I lost 14 quarts of fresh blueberries when the power stayed out, yet the neighbors eventually had blueberry cobblers. We played games by candlelight. Children made decorative ice cubes with cookie cutters left out overnight. Come July, we will crank up the air conditioner and say, “Do you remember that winter it froze?” This is our little part of an eternal plan.
It was You who set all the boundaries of the earth; You made both summer and winter. –
Psalm 74:17
Let Me Tell Ya 