A recent cold rain reminded me of the one special Southern California storm I experienced in my childhood. It was December, 1967. Our family was still in that first, tiny trailer. One morning, early for a school day, Mom woke me up, telling me to come look at something. Once out in the living room with my little brother, I saw that she had roused my sisters, too. We gathered at the large front window of the trailer.
"Look," she told us, “It’s snowing."
In the dim glow of a nearby street lamp, my wondering eyes saw puffy bits of white gently falling. There was no wind. The falling snow muffled the sounds of morning. As it grew lighter, we saw that everything was covered in a blanket of white: streets, trailers, cars, trees. For Mom, a native of the state of Wyoming, a little snow was no cause for concern, so we proceeded with the usual business of our morning. We marveled at the whiteness as we piled into the car. I don’t remember feeling unusually cold. Children have a different thermostat than adults.
Mom dropped us off at Grandma Gene's house as she usually did on school days. It turned out that Grandma Gene would have us all day, for school had been cancelled. Mom found that amusing -- canceling school for a few inches of snow. It wasn't long after she left for work that my two older sisters and I headed outside to explore. My trusty PF Flyers were not snow-proof, but this was a chance in a lifetime. We had wandered a few blocks from Grandma Gene's when something slammed painfully into my back, nearly knocking the wind out of me! I had been struck by a well-aimed snowball. This was no fluffy powder ball, but a hard-packed slush ball just short of being solid ice. We saw a boy I didn’t recognize laughing as the three of us whirled around. There was just one of him, and my sisters in those days were rather protective. They gave him a stern warning and he skulked back to his house.
The thrill of hiking in snow wore off quickly when my shoes started soaking through, so we headed back. At Grandma Gene's house, there was a better surprise in store for us. As we tromped in, she handed us cereal bowls and told us to go outside and collect clean snow. Perplexed but obedient, we came back into the kitchen with our bowls mounded. She then ladled a creamy, faintly yellow liquid over our snow and passed out spoons. For the first time in my life, I was having ice cream made with snow! Something commonplace for those in more frigid climates was entirely novel for me. I will always remember how delicately sweet and smooth it was compared to store-bought ice cream.
In spite of the magical quality of that day, we were still in Southern California, short miles inland and a few hundred feet above the moderating influence of the Pacific. Soon, the snow started melting. School was back in session the next day. I was left with the memory of two very different uses of snow: as a weapon or as an impromptu dessert. With that memory came a simple lesson: Storms will come. And when they do, I can harm others through mindless self-absorption, or I can seek grace to be a blessing to others.
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