TheBanyanTree: Snow

[Dale M. Parish]

First time since '73- it may snow here tonight, although the
temperature isn't supposed to drop below 34F. 

I remember the snow of '73.  I got a haircut that morning-- think it
was the 12th of January, and had been raining for a day and then the
temperature dropped to below freezing and everything that was wet,
which was everything, started freezing.  Then it continued to rain and
freeze, coating everything with ice.  It was weird to us-- the briars
were coated with several millimeters of ice, and you could walk
through a briar patch in your insulated coveralls and not get snagged
by a briar at all-- the ice just broke and shattered.  

My great aunt Posey was up from Tampico, Mexico, visiting her baby
sister Aunt Helen, and my grandmother, another younger sister, had
gone out to Aunt Helen's to visit with them.  They would have been in
their early 70s then.  The ice covered branches had started breaking
off and knocking out the power and phone lines.  We hadn't heard
anything from Aunt Helen's yet-- they still had party lines out on the
Lemonville Road-- and so I got elected to take my new four-wheel drive
and go check on them. 

When I turned in off the Farm To Market, I saw the smoke from the
chimney and knew they had a good fire going.  There was plenty of wood
piled on the front porch, which hadn't burned in the fire of '52.  The
old house had been built completely from petrified wood, and there was
a porch across the front that had four big arches about eight feet
wide and ten feet high, and dry wood was always kept there in the
winter.  Just inside the front door was the fireplace.  That section
of the old house hadn't burned.

As always, I went to the back porch, but the screen was latched from
the inside.  Very unusual.  I couldn't get to either of the back doors
to knock where it would be heard from inside the house, so went back
around to the front door and knocked.  I could hear laughter inside.

As soon as I knocked, I heard women hollering and a commotion inside,
and furniture being shoved about.  "Who's there?!?!, called one of
them.  "Dale,"  I replied.   "Came out here to check on you,"
expecting to be let in. 

"Wait a minute, we're not dressed."  That rattled me-- the thought of
my grandmother and great aunts all sitting around the fire naked
wasn't in my experience.  After some shuffling and laughter, the door
was finally opened, and I eased in.  They must have all thought the
look on my face was funny, because they all started howling at me.
"You scared us-- we didn't know whose truck that was when we saw it
out the window.  We were sitting around the fire in our underwear
drinking scotch and telling stories, and didn't hear you." 

When I told them that the we had been worried about them out here in
the country without power or phones, they sent me packing.  "We have
plenty of scotch, firewood and groceries, and got along without power
before it got out here.  You go on back to town and tell your Daddy
that we're Ok, and thanks for checking.  I wasn't invited to stay any
longer and was ushered to the door. 

I'll bet there were some really good stories told that day.

Hugs,
Dale 

-- 
Dale M. Parish
628 Parish Rd
Orange TX 77632
(409) 745-3899	http://parishdm.home.att.net