Let's Build a Snowman!

Now, as the Winter of 2009 is in full swing and we are bracing for another round of the 'deep freeze' with a predicted ice storm soon to arrive, memories of days long ago of kids gathering to build snowmen, skate on frozen creeks, or go on sleigh rides on snow packed streets come streaming back to mind.

For those of us who grew up in the cold winter regions of the country, snowmen are special creatures that we fondly remember creating on those cold wintery days when the snow fall was of the right consistency to roll into giant balls that would 'pack' and hold their form. Neighborhood kids would don their warmest apparel and race outside to congregate in yards to begin the task at hand of building 'Frosty.' Moms would keep an anticipatory eye on the youngsters as they engineered their snow packed pals into friendly fellows that stood watch over the neighborhood until warmer temperatures arrived and their eminent demise was unavoidable as they melted away into happy distance memories.

From the yellowed, crumbling pages of an aging picture album, put together by a loving mom who was ready to rescue us kids from the freezing cold at any given moment with hot chocolate and warm dry clothes, I found a few wonderful black and white photos that were snapped to record those precious moments one winter day long ago when my younger brothers and our two next door neighbor girls built a great snowman in our front yard. The photo is none less than 'picture perfect.'

However, I cannot limit the fun of playing in the snow and building snowmen to childhood, as on a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, a few years ago, my husband and I arrived in time for a rare snowfall in that area of the country. Much to our amazement, we found the grown locals having a great time doing what else, -- but building snowmen! With interest we observed hundreds of folks driving to mountain slopes, loading heaps of snow into the beds of their pickup trucks or piling it on the hoods of their vehicles where they then built their snowmen right in their truck beds or on the hoods of their cars and paraded up and down the roads and streets displaying their wonderful snow sculptures. It just goes without saying, we never outgrow the kid in ourselves and the desire to play in the snow.

Here a snow couple nestles in the back of a pickup truck with their snow deer companion. This picture was taken in Sedona, AZ.

HAT'S OFF TO SNOWMEN!