When I was in the 3rd grade, I still went to good ol' St. Mary's catholic school. We lived on our farm then, but I was dropped off at my aunt's house by my parents on their way to work. We had no livestock, so both my parents worked in town.Then, at the proper time, my two cousins and I would walk to the old brick school on the hill. One day, I happened to glance up and out the nearby window of our classroom. It had started to snow. I don't know why, but even today, I'm mesmerized by snowfalls. I love to sit and watch the flakes float down. As I watched, it began to snow harder, and harder, until it was snowing so hard it almost looked like a whiteout. My full attention was on this wondrous (to me) event. A sudden slap aside my head brought me out of my coma. The NIC, nun in charge, was standing over me, glaring down, yelling something about calling my name several times and I better start paying attention or she'll know the reason why. Somehow I survived a Catholic education. St. Mary's school.
@Ike Willis, I studied in a Catholic school all my life - elementary, high school and college. My grade school was St. Anne's Academy which was later renamed to St. Mary. So that means we had experienced the same teaching methods by the nuns. We have no snow here but my recollection about weather is the typhoon Yoling in 1971. I was in grade school and a holiday was declared due to the typhoon. Gee, there was no classes but the sun was shining brightly. Great, I could maybe rent a bike. But on the next day, I was wakened by the strong winds and the radio was blaring with news reports on the floods and the fallen trees. It was breakfast time when we were looking out the window in the second floor when we saw galvanized iron sheets flying from nowhere and to nowhere. It was a terrible typhoon that ravaged our place and left Metro Manila with no power for almost a month - most electric posts were down. When the winds of a storm or typhoon starts to manifest, I always recall that typhoon Yoling.
Here I thought wite-out is just a correction fluid product name. What an experience you had when you were a little boy. We don't have snow on Oahu. We sometimes get snow way up in the mountains of Maui and the Big Island. Maui snow is accessible, but not so the Big Island snowy regions by the telescope. I don't know what it's like seeing snow fall. It must be so cool where it snows and I like cool weather to the 70 degrees only though.
Sometimes, it's hard to convey certain climates to people who live in very different conditions. When I lived in Eritrea, I was having a drink one evening with a UN volunteer from Scotland and a couple of local people of our acquaintance. The temperature was around 40C. It was January and we were telling them what it was like in Scotland at that time of year. It was clear that our Eritrean friends were finding it difficult to believe. My Scottish colleague provided a demonstration. He led us off to a fish freezer at the ministry where he worked, opened the door and invited everyone inside. "Welcome to Scotland," he said.
When I was growing up in northern Idaho, we had a lot of snow every winter. It would be up to the windows of the house, and then the snow would come off of the roof, and that would almost bury the windows. We kids could climb up on the snow and reach the roof, which we often did because we all liked to get an ice-sickle and munch on it on the small end. If a person did not drive their car and keep it shoveled off, then the car would be buried under a snowpile for the winter. We used to take our sleds up to the roof of the car, and then sled down the back and off into the street. When snowplows came by, people had to move their cars; so all the cars would be on one side of the street when the snowplow went by, and then everyone moved the cars to the other side so the plow could clear that part of the street. Then, all of the sidewalks going to the houses had to be shoveled. People who had driveways or garages did not have to move their cars; but they still had to shovel out the driveways. The streets would accumulate so much snow in the winter, that sometimes the traffic was almost one lane, and cars had trouble passing oncoming vehicles.
I love snow and obviously dont get any in Fresno! Then I start to remember the realities of snow when I lived in the midwest, like cleaning off your car or driving in it....then I'm kind of glad we dont get any! As for NUNS, I went to a catholic school for 3 years....turned me off of religion!
We get snow down here in Texas..Only about once or twice a year, but the past 3 or 4 years we have been getting more ..We also get ICE STORMS!!!!! They are the worst!!
My aunt and uncles house back in the fifties. I think they were showing off their giant icicle. Our place was just down the hill from them.