By Staff
Leada Gore, Editor
I was walking out of a meeting the other night when I saw two ladies bundled up in coats chatting. They were standing in a parking lot as they talked despite the fact their teeth were chattering and hands shivering.
"You all need to go inside!" I said with a laugh. "It's too cold to talk out here!"
They both laughed. One lady agreed, adding in her best Southern drawl that she was "Absoooluteeely freeezing."
The other laughed but added that the weather wasn't that cold.
"I'm from Ohio," she said. "This isn't cold at all."
And there we have it–the Mason-Dixon line of weather. It's cold up North and people are accustomed to snow. It's warm down South and even the prediction of white stuff sends us scurrying to the grocery store for milk and bread.
In my occasional ventures up North, I was amazed that no one seemed to slow down for the snow. I was in Ohio a few years ago when they marked a record snowfall. It was more snow than I had seen, yet life went on. School was in session, businesses were open and grocery stores had stocked shelves. I was nervous about driving in the snow but, to my shock, quickly adapted and was able to navigate with ease.
It was then I decided that Northern snow isn't as bad as Southern snow, much in the way they say 105 degrees isn't bad in Arizona because "it's a dry heat." Obviously, Northern snow is dry snow.
Faced with 3 feet of snow in Alabama, I would have refused to drive and opted to stay bundled up on the couch to conserve energy in case the big blizzard lasted. In Ohio, I quickly adapted to the snow and went about my normal day. I even went to the store to purchase boots as I learned cute heels aren't much of a match for snow.
Suddenly, snow was second nature.
But that was several years ago. Now, I'm back to being a typical Southerner who panics at the first falling flake.
That's just what I did last week when I heard we might have some snow during the weekend. I watched all the news shows and then checked internet weather sites incase they knew something the local meteorologists didn't. All predictions pointed to snow.
"I hate snow," I grumbled. "If I wanted to live where it snowed, I would live in the North. I live in the South because I like warm weather."
How quickly I had forgotten! The Ohio snowfall I experienced was beautiful. It was peaceful. It was an exciting new experience.
But it was apparently one I'd just as soon not like to experience again. It's one thing to drive in the snow. It's another thing entirely not to be able to wear cute shoes because your toes will freeze to death.