Rant #2,595: Snowbird

It is supposed to snow again today.
 
I guess you can say that it is “just another day on Long island.”
 
I mean, the tax man has already rained on my parade, so why not get pummeled by the snow, too?
 
I would like to say that this has all made me snow blind, but it hasn’t.
 
I will continue to hate every snowflake that comes down out of the sky for the rest of my life.
 
As a kid, in Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, we were a new community, the perfect place for a little kid to grow up.
 
Things were rising every day in our community, whether it be a new building or a new place to shop, and eventually, we would have the first mall to do our shopping in, an indoor mall—kind of revolutionary for the time—with not only retail, but medical offices.
 
How does this relate to snow?
 
Well, there was a hill right by one of the entrances to the mall, and when it would snow, just about every kid in the development took their sleds and went to that hill to slide down on the fresh snow.
 
At one time, there might have been 200 kids there, then replaced by 200 more, and so on, throughout those snowy days.
 
I would go there with my friends—and sometimes with my sister—and we would go up and down the hill with our sleds.
 
One time, somehow, I got my right hand caught under the sled as it was plowing down the mountain, and the sled blade literally ripped off my glove from my hand.
 
As I hate to wear gloves to this day, it was truly fortuitous that I was wearing my gloves that day, because without the glove on my right hand, I don’t know if I would still have had a hand after sledding over it—the glove was truly ripped to shreds by that blade.
 
I remember those days very fondly … and the photo above is from that period, from 1969 I believe. 

But I also remember moving to Long Island, and having my sledding days completely curtailed by the new responsibility that I had—I was the one who had to shovel the snow when we had a snowstorm.
 
What a difference a year made—1971, still going down that hill by the first mall, 1972, shoveling snow from the driveway and walks around my house.
 
And that stark contrast has stuck with me for all the decades since.
 
I loved the snow as a kid, and hate it as an adult.
 
I remember the snow ball fights I participated in as a kid, the snowmen we built—mine never looked quite right—but I also remember the piles and piles of snow that I have shoveled over the years … I am so fond of the former but so hate the latter.
 
Now, I kind of had a snow “renaissance” when my kids were young. I took them around on their sleds, but they weren’t that much into the snow as I was at their age.
 
Maybe my hate of the snow came through and reflected on them, but they have never been snowbirds at all.
 
I remember my daughter making snow angels, I remember taking my son sledding, but neither event lasted long, and we were back in the house in no time.
 
Maybe if I am ever fortunate enough to be a grandfather, I will experience the true fun of snow again, but who knows if that is ever going to happen?
 
Those days in Rochdale Village sledding down that hill seem so far away now, so many years away that they are just a very small footnote on my life.
 
But at least I experienced it, and experienced the other end of it, too, with the shoveling.
 
I can rightly say that when the snow comes, I know that I will be forced into duty as the snow picker upper in my family—with my wife, of course.
 
And with the snow now coming in areas that you wouldn’t think would ever get any—Texas, for one—I guess you can run, you can hide, but you simply cannot avoid the snow.
 
Snow more! Mush!