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School being closed for four days in Troup County because of snow and ice seemed like a thing of the past until this January. We’ve gotten maybe a few flurries the last several winters.  I do enjoy seeing flakes falling outside my window and a powdery covering of snow from time to time – as long as icy conditions don’t cause my power to go out!

Have you noticed how Atlanta forecast maps frequently show wintry weather coming from the northwest stopping at the southern border of Heard County with nary a chance for Troup? I’ve often wondered how the snow will know to stop right there.

But this time, it came from the south, and that worked for us as far as being treated to a winter wonderland. However, roads became treacherous fairly quickly on Tuesday, before everyone had time to get home, and local law enforcement worked a whopping sixty-four accidents that evening. A stretch of extremely cold days then contrived to keep county roads too icy for school buses to safely run.

Southerners often don’t use good judgment during wintry conditions. Our road crews do their best to get ahead of things, but too many of us feel invincible and just know that WE won’t slide off the road. It’s hard to stop normal life for a couple of days and just stay inside.

There’s no judgment from me, because I can look back on my own snowy foibles and fails. I have slipped on black ice stepping off my front porch, lucky not to crack my head on the concrete step. I have crunched and slid my way home from church on a Sunday morning after it started snowing during the service – we should have cut things short!

The worst thing I somehow survived unscathed was when I was a young, single teacher. An incoming winter storm sent us home from school early. A good friend, another young single teacher, who lived downtown (I lived out Youngs Mill Road) suggested I come to her house so we could have each other’s company for the duration, reasoning that her location would probably have power restored more quickly if outages occurred. Though roads were quickly becoming dangerous, I just knew that I could make it there if I was slow and careful.

My vehicle was an ancient Volkswagen Beetle with poor heating. By the time I made it to Commerce Avenue my windshield had iced over, impervious to the lackluster efforts of my wiper blades. I had to roll down my window and stick my head way out to see ahead of me. By the time I got to her place, somehow without wrecking, she laughed hysterically at the pitiful sight of me with ice pellets all over my face and in my hair.

As a young Southern man living in Maryland and working in Virginia, my husband suffered the indignity of his old car breaking down during a very heavy snow that fell while he was coming home from work one day. He was standing helplessly outside his car when a lady with kids, who was close to home, stopped and offered him a ride because he “looked so pitiful standing there” with the snow swirling around him. Conditions were deteriorating rapidly, so he couldn’t get a tow truck and she couldn’t drive him all the way home. She did, however, tell him he could spend the night at her house. There were no concerns about stranger danger; she was simply determined to be a good Samaritan. The next day the roads had been cleared and a tow truck dispatched.

Nowadays, nobody has to tell me twice to just stay home. There’s no place like it on a snowy day!