Weather outside frightful

This "Spud" from Idaho grew up where it gets COLD for the winter, and it snows occasionally. (Cynically, I've told folk that in Boise it snows twice a year, the day AFTER Christmas and Mothers Day!)

BUT the weather we're suffering this very week here in San Antonio is FRIGHTFUL. Indeed, lots of songs about winter have been playing in my head the past couple of days. I'm referring to songs which are often broadcast during December on the radio, or heard over Muzak systems in mall stores. It's as tho' these were Christmas songs -- but the holiday is NEVER mentioned, nor is gift-giving, so THESE SONGS could be sung or broadcast in January or February without a problem! "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow" comes to mind almost as frequently as "Walking in a winter wonderland."

Winter weather where I was raised was VERY different from weather in states of the south central or southeastern USA. In Idaho, once it got cold for the winter (by December) it STAYED cold. The occasional snowfall was powder snow, not all that good for making snowballs or snowmen, but gr-r-r-reat for sledding or skiing. And fairly safe to drive on, except for the very rare "black ice" under a subsequent snow covering.

Upon moving to Fort Worth, when the winter of 1976-77 commenced, I began to hear forecasts for something called an "ice storm". What's THAT, I'd wonder. I found out in a hurry. It wasn't pleasant. It was nothing like the powder snows in which I'd grown up! When I'd drive back and forth between FW and Dallas I'd see plenty of vehicles of all types off in the roadside ditch.

Well, San Antonio had enjoyed rather mild winters since my 2002 arrival for my sojourn here. Until this past Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, that is. This city boasts the best attended MLK parade in the country, and leaders had planned on over 100,000 marchers in this, King's REAL birthday as well as Monday federal holiday. However, Monday's very cold rainfall kept the number well under a fourth of that!

Then Tuesday and Wednesday the rain became an actual ice storm. So students remained out and schools closed an additional two days, and in the Hill Country three. Overpasses and Hill Country stretches of roadways got closed due to the icy conditions, and a busload of Greyhound travellers got stranded in Kerrville. Iron fences and tree and shrub limbs received an ice coat of close to half an inch. Oh, the poor rhododendrons outside my window!

I got cabin fever, and ventured out on errands. I made certain to return to my efficiency unit before nite-fall. This morning I entered a conveniece store to buy a cup of hot chocolate. (What I'd have given for Mexican hot cocoa, champurrado!) Convenience stores here are almost all managed/owned by Indians. So I quipped to the manager, "Well with this type weather, I reckon that you wish you were back in India."

To my surprise, he answered, "No." Then he explained that he valued the life and freedom he knows here in the good ol' U.S. of A!

Consider THAT something to warm one's red-blooded all-American heart on a frigid winter day!