Whenever winter comes in Pennsylvania and the snow starts to come down in streams I remember. You know that big, fluffy, flakey snow that fills the air around you. Suddenly it covers everything around you. It's that kind of snow that comes down so big, so fast it sticks to your eyelashes when you blink. It surrounds everything. It has no consideration of what it might stick to and conceal..Covering everything until the air is filled with that silent hush...that soft sound of quiet winter...Birds don't tweet, dogs don't bark and the wind blows only to pile the soft, white flakes in heaps. It usually happens at least once a winter when everyone shuts down. Schools closed, no work, people just forced to stay home and enjoy the day or night...The neighborhood is quiet, the cars cease to make even a track on the road through the new laid snow...It was that kind of day I will never forget. It was probably the strangest of all weather phenomenon. I was about 5 when I started first grade. In 1950 people there wasn't any testing done, if your mother felt it was time to enter school...You entered school..No matter what!...Anyway, I remember that night when it started to snow. Bigger than ever flakes, piling up on everything. At night it fell through the moonlight and softly blocked out the light into a muted gray..looking out the window we all thought we would be buried by morning. Going to bed we knew we would all be in for a surprise come morning. The next morning there was so much snow it completely covered the cars to where you could barely see them...The door to our add on living room wouldn't open...we had to push it until we could slither through a small space out into the snow covered earth. There was so much snow stacked against it...WE WERE LITERALLY SNOWED IN!! What excitement filled the house, the trailer park, the entire neighborhood as everyone made their way out the door to only find no starting place to begin the day...The day was about 50 some inches of snow fell that night..over 5' of snow. It was AWESOME!! Snow blowers hadn't been invented yet and shovel were everyone only resort...We made a path way with the shovel to get out...and throughout the day my sister and I tunneled through the new fallen snow...with our hands the way you do in sand, we carved out scoop by scoop a maze of tunneled paths throughout the yard and behind. The snow was over our heads, the cool blue color shined through as the suns rays seeped through the snow carved roof...The silence was all around!! It was like going through a maze of cold cotton..I remember that day, when I see those big flakes coming down but have never since seen such a wonderful day of complete awe struck beauty...carved out by our own hands...After a few days the ceiling all fell in and the snow began to melt..but our memories of that wonderful fun filled day will live forever!!
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