When I moved to Nashville last year, I was looking forward to having snow in my life for the first time since I’d moved from Iowa to Los Angeles in 1992.  I was told by my Canadian better half not to get excited.
 
Me:  I can’t wait for snow. This will be my first real winter in over 20 years!  We should buy a snow blower!
Her:  That’s cute.  And, no.  We don’t need a snow blower.  It rarely snows more than a couple days a year here and when it does, it doesn’t stick for more than a few hours.
 
That was last September.
 
This was last week.
 
Me:  Our cars are snowed in.
Her:  I know.
Me:  Even if they weren’t, there’s no way they’d make it up the drive.
Her:  I know.
Me:  Sure could use a snow blower right about now.
Her:  Shut up.
 
Last week the weather that hit Nashville took me back to my Iowa childhood days.  Part of the enjoyment for me was making fun of southern “sleds” because they weren’t sleds at all.  They looked like lake toys for over-protected children that were meant to be dragged behind boats in crowded lakes.  As an Iowa girl, where sledding, skating, skiing and weekly trips to the ER are birthrights, going down a hill on a giant, pink oversized rubber donut would be grounds for being banned from our hometown hill forever.
 
I understand even more why rugby players make fun of American football players.
 
Sleds are metal and wood and say Radio Flyer on them.  Or, they’re hard plastic discs with handles that break easily and won’t steer so you grip your frozen hands to the sides and rocket down the hill anyway.  You’d flatten yourself to be able to whiz under the barbed-wire fence and make sure you’re going fast enough to make it all the way across the road. 
 
You rolled off prematurely only if a farmer had lowered the fencing in the spring or if there was a car coming you couldn’t out run…..and everyone waiting for you at the top of the hill better agree with your choice.
 
There is also the improvised sled during those times when necessity becomes the mother of resourcefulness.  On one of their first dates, my dad didn’t bring Mom flowers.  He broke into the locked cafeteria of his fraternity house, stole two lunch trays and took her sledding.
 
Metal.  Wood.  Hard plastic.  These are all sleds.  Anything the boy in the plastic bubble could have safely used, is not.
 
Last week we spent five days unable to get our cars out of the driveway.  We had no way to get to any stores to buy the snow blower I had so astutely suggested we get back in the fall (which wouldn’t have mattered anyway since they were sold out to people not married to Canadians) but we had a blast.
 
We tried to make a snowman and after ten minutes, when our base still looked like a shrunken head, we went and played with the ones our neighbors to the north had made.  We went sledding (on real wooden sleds borrowed from the same neighbors), made snow angels, hiked through six inches of gorgeous fluff to the store for hot cocoa and wine (storm essentials) and enjoyed crackling fires with borrowed wood from our neighbors to the east.
 
The snow is still here but melting fast.  If this happens again, we will be more prepared, and if we’re not, we still have our neighbors to the south and west whom we have not yet irritated.
 
I hope all of you survived last week’s weather intact and to our friends in Texas and other areas so hard hit, we continue to say prayers for a fast recovery.