We have already had several snowstorms here in Denver, and tomorrow is the 1st of December, which can be one of Denver's snowiest months. This has made me think about my feelings about snow these days. And my conclusion is that if I have to drive in it - especially across the open plains on the way to Fort Collins - I absolutely hate it. It is no fun when the wind whips it up and you can only see 3 feet in front of you. I usually try to get behind a truck and follow it, optimistically believing the driver can see much better than me. And I haven't changed my mind about snow since I slipped on black ice in my parking lot the other day and landed flat on my back. I still feel the pain. Of course, when I was a young lad and didn't have to either drive in it or shovel it, I loved the snow, and thought it made for cool photographs, like the one on the left I took of my mother back in 1962 in front of our house in the Brainerd neighborhood, on the south side of Chicago. She was either just arriving home or about to leave on an errand in our '61 Pontiac Catalina.
My favorite snowfall photograph is the one on the right, a shot from my bedroom window, also taken in 1962. To me it looked like a different world, seeing all that snow gathering on the roof of our enclosed back porch and the garage beyond. We unfortunately moved to the southern suburbs of Chicago (a truly hellish place) in 1966, and the following January of that year had a massive blizzard. My sister was stranded in a bar near the Tinley Park Rock Island Station for two days, eventually walking home through huge snowdrifts, and my father wound up staying with his friend Norm Taylor at his place near Chicago's Foster Park. School was cancelled for 3 days, which made the storm okay with me, but I suspect the rest of the family had different opinions. As soon as my father retired, he and my mother headed to Stuart, Florida, where you might see an occasional snow flake every 30 years or so. Go figure.
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