One of the most notorious snow-haters. Notice the obvious displeasure.
Snow is rather unromantically defined by the OED as, "Atmospheric water vapour frozen into ice crystals and falling in light white flakes or lying on the ground as a white layer." Most of us who follow our desire to the mountains understand a different dynamic in our relationship with snow. It is not an equation, but in a way partly forms the core of our being.
Many of us, anticipating the possibility of accumulation find ourselves glued to the weather channel - oblivious to requests from loved ones such as "well I just rented this new romantic comedy with Ryan Reynolds and Reese Witherspoon and I was thinking we could...etc etc" only to come close to dramatic collapse when we hear the weather man inanely preface his forecast with a statement along the lines of, "well, bad news for those of you in the Northeast."
OK. First off - jerk. Don't assume anything about me. And second of all don't go preaching your snow-hating ways and imposing them on the rest of us!
There are plenty of people who believe snow to be a curse from the heavens. One may even be living in your neighborhood, and besides the unhealthy amount of ice-melt accumulating in their house's vicinity, you would have little idea of the danger lurking just around the corner.
Snow Haters.
These are people that despise winter. They see snow as a divine roadblock on the way to the morning shopping trip to Wal-Mart. A burden to overcome. Something to shovel. A piece of coal in their otherwise immaculate stocking.
Napoleon of course hated the stuff. Though I suppose he had a better reason than many, since it prevented him from conquering the entire world and becoming the grand-supreme leader of every human on the planet.
Nevertheless.
Closer to home, my friend attempts to explain his anti-snow position through a philosophical musing: "Snow is cold. Cold is cold because it can kill you."
Less than impressive, I know, but remember, we are dealing with people here that have less than remarkable spiritual resumes.
Take Barbara Phillips, posting on a message board with the specific intent of brewing up snow-hating sentiment. "I like to see some snow but don't like to see the effects on driving and I don't like lots of snow but I like a little bit of snow. Like on Christmas or maybe a light snow at some other point but I'm not fond of heavy snows." Wow. Just wow. And then we have Dennis M Scott, similarly attempting to promote a winter of discontent: "I'll admit that as I age, snow seems to be beginning (sic) to loose its exhilarating lure. About the ninth or tenth snowfall of a foot or more I look forward to seeing grass again." Mr. Scott, it can be said with reasonable certainty has the greenest lawn in his neighborhood.
I hope it goes without saying: Don't invite either of these two to your New Year's party.
Besides inflicting emotional chaos on those spiritually disinclined, it also can be amusing to witness the proverbial wrench a healthy snowfall can throw in the societal machine. Traffic jams, stuck cars, delayed openings, stranded travelers, and school closings. The National Snow Ice and Data Center (because of their rather wintry sounding name may be erroneously considered an ally) betray their sentiment in the opening lines of their manifesto on winter, All About Snow, when they say, "Snowstorms have historically plagued many states."
Well it appears snow is now an affliction of Biblical proportions, akin to a swarm of locusts. Of course, all this seems relatively pedestrian in comparison to our friendly neighborhood superpower's rather estranged relationship with winter.
China, you see, has recently determined its snow hatred so blazingly intense that it has decided it has been left with no choice but to declare war on snow in general. State news agency, Xinhua, declared in predictably dramatic fashion that, "China was waging ‘all-out war'" on the element as, "460,000 troops from the People's Liberation Army and paramilitary forces fanned out across parts of China as weather forecasters predicted more blizzards and icy conditions into next week."
They hate snow even more than Barbara Phillips
Despite this relentless assault, we persist. In small enclaves everywhere we continue to search for places where there is an excess of snow. We do this for the stroll through downtown as the sky opens up and our imaginations percolate. We do this for the beer on the porch with friends, watching the world change before our eyes.
We search for it because of the unreal feeling of sailing down the fall line. Focused. The singular experience of elemental passion that comes from the union of the physical, emotional, and spiritual - converging, for a run through the evergreens after a storm.
The immense quiet. The feeling that the world will never end, although we know it will.
We know how to live, and it feels good