Chance of snow brings back memories

Published 7:00 am Wednesday, January 22, 2014

The possibility of snow occurring later this week has stirred up fond memories of my time with snow.

The first time I saw snow was on Dec. 25, 2004. Remarkably, it was in Louisiana and while it was not much, it was so exciting to wake up to snow on the ground.

It was straight out of a movie and something I never thought I would experience.

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I stayed outside all day throwing snowballs, actually they were more like ice balls, at each other and relishing this wonderful event.

I thought that would be the last snowfall I would get to experience outside of vacationing in some location where snow is a frequent occurrence.

Instead, I once again experienced a snowfall in Louisiana, only this time it was eight inches that fell.

I know it may sound impossible, but for about four brief hours in Hammond, La., snow fell heavy on the ground, turning my college campus into a winter wonderland.

I have many pictures to prove it.

I was living in the dormitories with my best friend at the time. Of course, as soon as the snow started to fall, the electricity went out, but we didn’t care.

We dressed in the warmest clothes we could find, which were jackets and jeans. We were nowhere near prepared, but that’s what made the moment so special.

It was spontaneous.

After two hours in the cold and dark, we realized we were hungry and needed to find food. We had no way to dig our cars out of the snow that had piled up and even if we could, there was no way we were driving in the snow.

Instead, we walked a mile to the closest store with electricity and picked up whatever junk food we could and then trekked back to our dorm rooms.

So, even if it doesn’t snow this week, it was nice to be able to reminisce about the past.