Last Friday, February 12, Charleston received its first measurable snowfall in a decade. Schools and businesses closed early in anticipation (some didn't open at all), and I was happy to be sent home at 4:45. Everyone was buying supplies like bread and milk, and people were apparently buying coal shovels from the big box home stores, since they don't even sell snow shovels down here. I played cool, rolling my eyes at everyone who was driving at 30 mph on the highway, but when the snow started falling I gave myself away as a Southerner when Sue suggested we go out for dinner by shrieking that we couldn't go anywhere, the roads were too dangerous. I immediately clarified coolly that it was the other drivers who were dangerous, but then gave myself away again by wailing that the bridges were probably sheets of ice.
I struggled to button my jeans over a pair of pyjama pants for layering and took Lainey out for a romp around midnight in the huge field near our house. I was so charmed to see the thick, white flakes settle on my black coat. I went to school in Massachusetts, but it's been years and I'd forgotten the soft sound snow makes as it's falling. Lainey was thrilled, running around like a wild woman and catching snowballs in her mouth, shaking them viciously and then searching the ground for the exact piece of snow that I'd thrown.
In all, we got between 3-5" of snow. It was neat to imagine all the kids younger than about 13 or 14 years old who had never seen or couldn't remember seeing snow.
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