A Winter Wonderland in March

Spring was coming, it was, it really was. I, prematurely it turns out, had flip flops on, it was warm and sunny last Monday. Even Mother Nature received the memo and bulbs were starting to peep up through the ground.

Then talk started of some snow to hit beginning Friday. This talk of snow soon turned into a melodrama of the Blizzard of 2008 with a special logo on the local news. Usually when there are stylized logos of storm warnings, I tune out. And so on Friday morning when it was cloudy, but clear of snow, I hopped into the Beetle to drive to work. From 8 a.m. to about 1:30 p.m., I was at a meeting in a hotel ballroom with no windows. When I pulled out of the hotel, I was surprised to see snow and not just a little snow, but enough snow to make the half block drive from the hotel to my office a little scary for me. Once at work, my car safely in the parking garage, an e-mail was sent saying we could leave early and to be careful on the roads. I decided my car wasn't going anywhere, so my friend B. and I headed to a bar for a snow day beer and then to catch the bus. At the bar, along the streets and then on the bus, there was a sense of excitement and community goodwill. It was fun and out of the normal for Columbus to have quite as much snow fall as this in March. I encountered the same sense of spirit on my walk through my neighborhood on Saturday afternoon. There is something about the first hours of a snowstorm that make me think PLAY, so we embraced that spirit for a few hours of sledding. And later still we had some friends over for pot roast, games and more wine than was probably acceptable for four people. But, hey, snow days are for celebrating.