Snow

            I hardly ever get sentimental here in my blog. I try to put down the lighthearted stuff for the public to read and save the tearjerkers for my own personal viewing. But sitting here in my dad’s apartment at 2:45, after I’ve been watching the first snow I’ve seen in a while fall, it’s hard not to get a little sentimental, blog-style. It’s just, I know people can actually relate to what I’m feeling right now. It’s not really a bad feeling, just a realization of a notion that’s been forming in the back of my mind for some time. I’ve realized that although everything in my life has changed, and I’m not the kid I once was, these little nuances, like watching snow fall from a frosted window and seeing it swirl around a streetlamp, will always be there to take me back and calm me down.

            I must have been around six years old for my first memorable snow of Charlotte. I had one of those plastic Torpedo sleds. They worked pretty well, but the snow that year had a heavy ice grade with a fine layer of powder on top. Yeah, ideal for a Flexible Flyer. Fortunately, my neighbor Campbell had one of those babies. That thing was almost true to its name, until Campbell and I put it to its limit with another neighborhood kid, Trevor Cherry, who in the future would be featured in the newspaper as one of the youngest homeowners ever or something like that (his house would later burn down). All three of us got on it and went down the neighborhood hill. We were screwed from the get-go, and not even the drivetrain of the Flexible Flyer could steer us away from the post of 238 Medearis Drive. I took the brunt of the blow, severely bruising my back and fucking the rest of my day up. A few years later, my boy Preston would sustain an eerily similar injury, hitting a mailbox on a flexible flyer stacked with himself and two other laddies. Sadly, his accident would effectively end his swimming career. I maintain that the two are mutually exclusive (he secretly knows that’s the truth, and can’t maintain a straight face when he says “No man, it fucked me up!” (I’m not even sure if I used “mutually exclusive” right. Better go with “unrelated” to be safe)).

            When I was younger, I associated snow with getting out of school, as I’m sure every kid up to age…18…probably does. But now, a seasoned 19-year-old, the white stuff no longer has this draw. I mean, I guess if it did happen to snow at the beach, I’d get out of class, but it just wouldn’t be the same. For one thing, college isn’t some mandatory busy-work bullshit that we’re forced to endure for the first 18 years of our lives. It’s a place where we pay good money to try to expand our minds, and missing a college class doesn’t feel as good as getting to miss a mile run and not having to look at Miss Asbury’s butt-in-the-front (ironic, perhaps she could have practiced some of her physical education techniques) or missing that Spanish quiz in that class taught by that black lady that absolutely hated me because she thought I was a smart-ass but in actuality I never said a word in that class, and believe me that would be something I would own up to in middle school because I thought troublemakers were gods. Was it Washington? Ms. Washington? She claimed she went to UNC. She sucked.

            God, I can remember so many good times I had in the snow: Watching the Freeman Three try to sled on a scooter (Steven), a piece of cardboard (Alex), and a car hood (Nick); tackling Bailey into the snow, along with the help of Brett, at least 30 times; watching Steinberg and Tyler Culbertson have numerous fights in snow football; watching some guy slide into my neighbor’s front yard in his Jeep, leaving giant muddy patches all along the grass, and then somehow getting his car out of there and bouncing before (he thought) anyone saw (I was eight years old, and a coward). I know I’m leaving a ton out, but snows here are so few and far between that eventually the memories begin to fade. But that feeling that I got when those first flakes came down tonight was the same one I used to get in the pit of my stomach on a Sunday night, when I didn’t even have to turn on the news to know that Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools were shutting their asses down on Monday because in case you haven’t noticed, they don’t like risks. And that was just dandy with me.