For most people,  snow stirs childhood memories of tossing snowballs, building snowmen, staying home from school. When my sons were little, they dashed into the yard as soon as the winds died down and the snow settled. On occasion, I joined them and pulled them along on their sled or helped them roll a sturdy foundation for a snowman. Our snowmen had button eyes, stick limbs and noses (I never had a carrot when we needed it), and jelly bean mouths that painted rainbow stripes as the snow melted.  Getting my kids into their snow suits was often quite a battle that took longer than the time they spent outside in the frigid temperature, but in their young eyes, the struggle was well worth it. After-all, snow was meant to be experienced.

Those years are long gone; my experience of snow is very, very different now. I detest it.

In my middle-age, my appreciation for Mother Nature's seasonal “gift” stops at memory.  I don't relish the experience any longer, not when it involves lifting the shovel (that thing has gotten surprisingly heavier through the years) and trying to figure out where to toss its hefty load. Every storm prediction transforms me into a snow-hating, cranky lady that begrudgingly races to the grocery store for provisions (milk! eggs! bread!) along with all the other snow-hating, cranky ladies I swore I would never be like. All this snow is ugly, dirty, and dangerous; the mountains at intersections and in parking lots are an impediment to drivers and pedestrians. I'm sick of looking at white and gray and white and gray; I long for the greenery of spring.

Though I hate snow, every now and then, something about it makes me smile, like the giant snowman on the corner of Lone Oak and Cherry Tree Farm Roads in New Monmouth. Perched high on a snowy mountain, its happy face grins at drivers and reminds us to smile through the storms and not take ourselves quite so seriously.

I guess it's all in how you look at it, sort of a snow blower half empty or half full kind of thing. Whatever it is, somebody on Lone Oak and Cherry Tree Farm Roads sure has the right spirit, and they are sharing their good will with all the rest of us!