January 7, 2002

Snow woes and egg panics

Through A Glass Darkly, by John Myers, Internet Photojournalist

I know there are many among us, primarily the young and the young at heart, who rejoiced mightily over the recent snowstorm.

I count myself at least an honorary member of the second category -- though definitely not young, I try to remain young at heart -- but I most certainly am not among those who rejoiced to see the white, fluffy stuff floating down in its solitary splendor.

Growing up here in sunny North Carolina, I was among the many kids who prayed for a White Christmas, and I can recall at least one or two years of my childhood prayers being answered.

Snow being so seldom seen (now there's a good name for a Bluegrass group. Oops, already taken) here in the sunny South, when it does come most folks here really enjoy the occurrences.

I still don't understand where the urge comes from to flock to the grocery stores and stock up on milk, bread and eggs. I ran out of eggs a few days before the storm hit and being the procrastinator that I am, I had the misfortune of seeking eggs during the latter part of the past week. After three days of seeing the egg shelves totally bare, I finally broke down and snagged the last two cartons of Egg Beaters from the third grocery of the day.

I'm sure they're better for you, but real eggs they ain't. They'll just have to do until the latest bread, milk and eggs panic is over.

But as perilous as surviving without eggs is to my fragile psyche, that's not why I don't like snow. I used to love the stuff like most other Tar Heels until I spent a couple of winters in fabulous Columbia, Missouri, smack dab in the middle of more nothing than you could possible imagine gathered in one spot.

I went out to Columbia to go to Journalism school, lo, many eons ago, back in the mid-70s, and shall not forget the trauma.

As you all well know, Piedmont North Carolina, where I called home until I was grown and gone, is a land of gently rolling hills and a gentle clime. Missouri, in particular Columbia, is neither.

It's flat as a pancake across the middle of the state and during the winter Missourians comment wryly "there's nothing between Columbia and the North Pole but a few barbed-wire fences."

It only took one winter to impress that truth on my soul.

I recall Missouri as the land of "too weather," as in too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry. When I first arrived to begin school in late August, a 100-plus heat wave was baking everything to a crisp, and that kept up well into September. Then we had two weeks of fall and winter struck like in-laws arriving for a visit.

By October, the first snow arrived and never left. I didn't see the ground again until March or April, and when I left campus the final time in May 1975, there was still some snow hanging around in the shady spots from a late spring surprise.

I hurried back to North Carolina upon graduation and have been here ever since. It's not perfect weatherwise, but it'll do.

Recall the January 2000 deluge of snow and ice? That one caught me in my office overnight where I was stranded for three days without power, unable to get my car out. Thank God the Holiday Inn was within walking distance and had bottled gas to cook.

But that sort of stuff is normal in Missouri. At least it's the exception here. As Loonis McGlohon and the late Charles Kuralt said in a Tar Heel tribute, "I like calling North Carolina home."