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I was as excited as a child on the night before Christmas.  I fully expected to wake up the next morning to find my yard covered with beautiful, fluffy, white powder. I dreamt about all the big snows I had experienced in my life…all three of them! Well, actually there have been a few more. I not only live in the South, but I live in the southern part of the South, or at least the southern part of Alabama. I have never lived above the Tennessee state line, so I’ve never lived where we received much snowfall. Having said that, I have lived where we had more than we have where I have lived for the past 18 years. 

I grew up on a mountain in Northeast Alabama, on Sand Mountain, to be exact. We had snow. The first one I can remember was somewhere around 1961. It was a big one. That one wasn’t much fun, because, according to Mama, and it was too cold and too deep to play outside. I think it began with ice, followed by snow. I don’t remember what month that was, but I think it stayed on the ground until my birthday in July! Most of our snows were not as big as that one, but it seems to me that we had one or two nice ones every year. 

When I was in college at Samford University, back in the mid-seventies, we had several nice snowfalls there. I remember playing football in the snow with classmates. It was hard to run without slipping down, or catch the football without it slipping through our hands and smacking us in the face, but boy was it fun! One year we went sledding.  Seibert Field was our football stadium. It looked like a bowl, with high grassy banks around the sides of the field. They were perfect for sliding down, but none of us had sleds. The cafeteria had plastic trays that worked pretty well, at least until we got caught! Using a couple of them, we could put our backside on one and our feet on the other, but they didn’t always stay together. The cafeteria folks didn’t always appreciate it either!

Then there was the big one, the blizzard of ’93. Jean and I were young parents by then and living in Rainbow City. That was the most snow I had ever seen, and perhaps may still be to this day. There was so much snow it broke all the power lines and we were without electricity for several days and nights. Thank God we had a fireplace!

This time, it didn’t come, at least not as far south as Opelika. New Orleans is the only place I’ve ever lived that was further south than Opelika. I only remember it snowing once during the three years we lived in New Orleans. We had 38 that time. No, not 38 inches; 38 snowflakes! We had floods down there, not snowstorms. We’ve had a few small snows since we’ve lived in Opelika, but not many. We must be below the snow line. In the northern end of the state, up In Fort Payne and certainly in Rainsville, high atop Sand Mountain, they had a nice little snow. They had enough to build snowmen, slide down a hill on a sled, cardboard box, and a cafeteria food tray. They had a respectable amount of the white stuff as far down as Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Atlanta. I hear that frozen stuff is in the forecast again, for next week. If it comes to Opelika, I’m going to build a snowman…six-inches tall!