Driving to the outer edge of the Walmart lot to find a parking spot as the customers somberly trudge into the store, clothed in their warmest winter attire, I dread competing for goods, as the snow is about to fall.
After discovering that the batteries were dead for our largest flashlight and battery-powered lantern during our brief power outage the other night, I went in search of a replacement, or at least batteries. Two propane lanterns on a shelf in the camping section, left behind by panicked people trying to quickly secure supplies, would go nicely with our somewhat new propane Coleman stove which is not for inside use either, but I choose a suitable flashlight on the nearly empty flashlight shelf instead.
In the beer aisle, three people are trying to make the correct wine choice, blocking my path with their carts. I want to ask them what they are planning for dinner. Red meat = red; white meat = white. I like red wine with pasta whether or not there is meat in the sauce. For everything else, there is beer, which I consider while a man is smiling in my direction like some men do when I purchase beer, either acknowledging I have made a good choice or hoping I will perhaps consider some other sort of choice. Samuel Adams' Cold Snap wins my vote as most appropriate for the occasion.
As I swerve the faulty clacking cart I was left with to avoid getting run into by those in a panic to locate bread and milk, I remain calm. Perhaps as a survival mechanism to endure the Walmart shopping experience, I begin to daydream.
My mind wanders to a time I was around the age of six and was in a snowstorm with my mother. Not the inch or two of snow we were about to have that constitutes an emergency in the South, but an honest to goodness Michigan snowstorm.
I do not know why my mother and I were in a car without my sisters or exactly where we were going. We were out near where she grew up and everything was white; the sky, the fields, the road. The whiteout condition eventually forced my mother to drive the car into the ditch where we came in for a soft landing since the snow was so deep. Not being able to see anything, I wondered which direction we would go for help. All I remember is that it was so cold and so windy that my mother could only protect me by putting a brown paper grocery bag over my head and leading me up the road back to Grandma's house where we would be warm and safe again.
There are other snowstorm stories I could tell, especially the one in which I was trying to get home to Michigan for Christmas after running off to Denver, Colorado after I graduated from college. I had bought the last ticket on an Amtrak train, hours behind schedule because of a snowstorm that hit Colorado. Once on the train, the 24-hour trip became much longer as the journey was halted numerous times so the tracks could be cleared as the snow continued eastward. By the time we had reached Chicago, the connection had been missed and I would then have to take a bus until I reached a city about an hour away from the farm. No more buses north were running. The county was officially closed!
Standing in line at that bus station to use the phone, I overheard the conversation of the person in front of me trying to contact someone to take him further north when his friends showed up at the bus station, even though we were at least four hours late. They happily included me in their attempt to get home and as we neared their small town I was pretty sure I would be spending the night with these new friends. But a pastor, whose name I do not even remember, decided to help me out. He drove into blinding snow as his wife quietly sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and we prayed we would not soon be joining all the other vehicles that had run off the road. We would make it to the police station where they would say good-bye and head back to their home.
Wrapped in a blanket because I had not taken a winter coat with me to Colorado and was in no way prepared for this or any other storm, I sat in a police station doing embroidery and wondering if I would be spending Christmas with the men on duty. My parents had gotten in touch with the neighbor who had a snowplow on his truck and since it was the only vehicle able to handle the volume of snow, the neighbor decided to risk the six-mile drive to the station to retrieve me.
Backing up to ram a snow drift just to proceed forward on the road took some time and the normally 15-minute or so drive probably took at least half an hour or more. So many times we could have gotten permanently stuck. So many things could have gone wrong. We could only take it one snow drift at a time.
Making it through a completely closed road up to the unplowed driveway of the house, I jumped out in waist-deep snow to make my way to the door. We knew we would be snowed in for days, not seeing anyone except for a rare sighting of our neighbors. A week or two snowbound was not that unusual. Not seeing the sun shine for even longer than that was a way of life. We already had four or five blankets on our beds; losing electricity would not alter that amount. We would weather many storms, always waiting for the day we would see a robin, the first sign of spring.
These are the thoughts that occupy me as I stand in the long line at Walmart. I think about being led to safety though I do not know where I am going, and the many people along the way who are willing to offer their support and love for my well-being. I breathe deeply. Spring will again come.
After discovering that the batteries were dead for our largest flashlight and battery-powered lantern during our brief power outage the other night, I went in search of a replacement, or at least batteries. Two propane lanterns on a shelf in the camping section, left behind by panicked people trying to quickly secure supplies, would go nicely with our somewhat new propane Coleman stove which is not for inside use either, but I choose a suitable flashlight on the nearly empty flashlight shelf instead.
In the beer aisle, three people are trying to make the correct wine choice, blocking my path with their carts. I want to ask them what they are planning for dinner. Red meat = red; white meat = white. I like red wine with pasta whether or not there is meat in the sauce. For everything else, there is beer, which I consider while a man is smiling in my direction like some men do when I purchase beer, either acknowledging I have made a good choice or hoping I will perhaps consider some other sort of choice. Samuel Adams' Cold Snap wins my vote as most appropriate for the occasion.
As I swerve the faulty clacking cart I was left with to avoid getting run into by those in a panic to locate bread and milk, I remain calm. Perhaps as a survival mechanism to endure the Walmart shopping experience, I begin to daydream.
My mind wanders to a time I was around the age of six and was in a snowstorm with my mother. Not the inch or two of snow we were about to have that constitutes an emergency in the South, but an honest to goodness Michigan snowstorm.
I do not know why my mother and I were in a car without my sisters or exactly where we were going. We were out near where she grew up and everything was white; the sky, the fields, the road. The whiteout condition eventually forced my mother to drive the car into the ditch where we came in for a soft landing since the snow was so deep. Not being able to see anything, I wondered which direction we would go for help. All I remember is that it was so cold and so windy that my mother could only protect me by putting a brown paper grocery bag over my head and leading me up the road back to Grandma's house where we would be warm and safe again.
There are other snowstorm stories I could tell, especially the one in which I was trying to get home to Michigan for Christmas after running off to Denver, Colorado after I graduated from college. I had bought the last ticket on an Amtrak train, hours behind schedule because of a snowstorm that hit Colorado. Once on the train, the 24-hour trip became much longer as the journey was halted numerous times so the tracks could be cleared as the snow continued eastward. By the time we had reached Chicago, the connection had been missed and I would then have to take a bus until I reached a city about an hour away from the farm. No more buses north were running. The county was officially closed!
Standing in line at that bus station to use the phone, I overheard the conversation of the person in front of me trying to contact someone to take him further north when his friends showed up at the bus station, even though we were at least four hours late. They happily included me in their attempt to get home and as we neared their small town I was pretty sure I would be spending the night with these new friends. But a pastor, whose name I do not even remember, decided to help me out. He drove into blinding snow as his wife quietly sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and we prayed we would not soon be joining all the other vehicles that had run off the road. We would make it to the police station where they would say good-bye and head back to their home.
Wrapped in a blanket because I had not taken a winter coat with me to Colorado and was in no way prepared for this or any other storm, I sat in a police station doing embroidery and wondering if I would be spending Christmas with the men on duty. My parents had gotten in touch with the neighbor who had a snowplow on his truck and since it was the only vehicle able to handle the volume of snow, the neighbor decided to risk the six-mile drive to the station to retrieve me.
Backing up to ram a snow drift just to proceed forward on the road took some time and the normally 15-minute or so drive probably took at least half an hour or more. So many times we could have gotten permanently stuck. So many things could have gone wrong. We could only take it one snow drift at a time.
Making it through a completely closed road up to the unplowed driveway of the house, I jumped out in waist-deep snow to make my way to the door. We knew we would be snowed in for days, not seeing anyone except for a rare sighting of our neighbors. A week or two snowbound was not that unusual. Not seeing the sun shine for even longer than that was a way of life. We already had four or five blankets on our beds; losing electricity would not alter that amount. We would weather many storms, always waiting for the day we would see a robin, the first sign of spring.
These are the thoughts that occupy me as I stand in the long line at Walmart. I think about being led to safety though I do not know where I am going, and the many people along the way who are willing to offer their support and love for my well-being. I breathe deeply. Spring will again come.
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