Dear George,
Compared to the U.P., we don’t get a lot of snow in Cincinnati, i.e., an annual average of 14 inches vs. 45 in Menominee or 149 in Marquette. Nonetheless, we get enough to claim that we have real winters, and the season’s first snowfall is always a major event. Cincinnati drivers get nervous when an inch of snow accumulates on the road, schools are prone to shut down quickly, and people are hesitant about walking outside. Though we take snow for granted as adults, adopting a childs-eye perspective makes one realize that snow is one of the true miracles of our natural world. First of all, it falls out of the sky, and it’s hard to imagine how it’s been resting up there and where exactly it’s coming from. It comes down in tiny flakes, barely larger than a grain of sand, yet soon it covers the entire landscape as far as the eye can see. Perhaps a trillion snowflakes or more, every one of them unique. And, most of all, the visual world is completely transformed. The browns and grays and greens and blues vanish, replaced by a homogeneous white carpet. A brand new and beautiful world.
I set out on Ludlow Avenue on Sunday after our first snowfall of the season to take some pictures in Burnet Woods. A young Indian couple was walking ahead of me. She was stopping to take photos of the snow. He was walking fifty feet ahead, clothed in bermuda shorts and flip-flops despite freezing temperatures and six inches of snow on the ground. Maybe, I thought, they’re from Southern India and don’t have any winter clothes. In any case, they both seemed happy with the exciting winter weather.
There were already four large snowmen gracing the playground at Burnet Woods, and a mother and her pre-teen daughter were halfway done on a fifth. Families were busy sledding on the hillside, and there were lots of footprints on the trails. Everything looked wondrous. Here are some photos to help envision the scene.
Love,
Dave
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