By Staff
Leada DeVaney, Hartselle Enquirer
I've heard a lot of talk lately about wintery weather.
"I hope it snows three feet," someone in our office said last week.
Not me.
I hate snow.
If I wanted to live with snow, I would move somewhere like Minnesota. I don't like snow, therefore I live in Alabama.
Sometimes, however, Mother Nature throws a curveball and we end up with the white stuff all over the ground.
Just last week, we in North Alabama woke up to a blanket, albeit a threadbare one, of snow on the ground.
"I hate snow," I grumbled as I rolled out of bed, my feet recoiling at the iciness of the cold hardwood floor.
I haven't always hated snow. Like most children, I loved it when it snowed because I didn't have to go to school.
That all changed in 1993, when the "blizzard" hit. (Side note: if you are from the North, do not laugh. We know that we overreact and our little dustings are not actual blizzards, but hey, we've got to have something to complain about.)
In 1993, I was living in an apartment in Birmingham. I was working at a newspaper in Shelby County, driving about 30 minutes each way.
In early March of that year, it snowed and snowed. I believe the official total was 6 inches, though my official count was 6 feet.
The heavy snow and ice brought down trees and power lines, leaving most of central Alabama – including where I lived – without electricity. I sat in my apartment for three days, huddled under a blanket.
I used a hibachi grill for heat. I heated up chicken soup on a coffee can with a roll of lit toilet paper inside. Desperate times calls for desperate measures.
Three days after the storm started, my boss called me.
"We've got to get into the office," he said, offering to pick me up so we could get to the newspaper.
We cautiously headed out in his gray Buick.
There were downed power lines on the roads and abandoned cars in the ditches. We made our way down the long country road, weaving between the power lines and trees.
Then…bam!
We felt a thud at the front of the car. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a deer bound off. The car had been hit by a deer.
"Darn," my boss said. (OK – he didn't really say darn, but can you blame him?)
"Drat" I replied.
We kept driving, making it to the office just in time to get the newspaper to press.
"Just think," he said, "we made it all the way here and didn't slip off the road only to get hit by a deer."
"I hate snow," I remember saying. "And deer, too."