Intimations of The Season

In my neck of the woods there’s a saying that if you do/don’t like the weather, wait fifteen minutes. Based on my Saturday experiences this past weekend, distance also makes a difference. If you don’t like the weather, drive for fifteen minutes. I left home in clear but cold chilly weather to go to a grandson’s football game. The championship game. End of the season.

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About three miles from home, I was in this (pic 1), another quarter of a mile and I was in this (pic 2). And finally at my destination, where the game was at, this! (pic 3). It’s that season again.

The kids played in almost two feet of snow. Do you still call that football, or snowball? I think the latter with a twist. It’s crazy to play football in so much snow that I quietly mused and hoped the kids’ competitive spirits would be dampened and downgraded to just a friendly game and fun in the snow like all kids do. 

In other words, let kids be kids! I’m sure they could, and would have, but I doubt the parents and coaches would have allowed it.  Sad?



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Anyway, driving in the snow is not anyone’s idea of enjoyment or fun, unless of course you happen to be a snowmobiler. Occasionally, however, I do take some pleasure in driving in the snow. And that’s normally around this time of the year (instead of the beginning months) which largely has to do with the distinct mood, feel, sights, sounds and even the smell of the season.



On my way to the game, corked up in the car’s confines, I listened to my timid and fretful thoughts interrupted by the pure white ominous flakes that struck the windshield like innocuous bugs.



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 The radio was on but had been turned real low by Dearie the night before when she took the car to her church meeting. I wanted to listen to a weather report, so I turned the radio up. And voila! Sweet, non stop, mood changing, sentimental, seasonal, beautiful Christmas music. Already? It seems that every year they start playing Christmas songs weeks sooner than the previous year. Soon, we will be listening to Christmas songs year round, which will be too extreme I think, and even despite the wish of  "the king himself" that “if every day was just like Christmas, what a wonderful world this would be.” (That wish, I think, would not be too extreme.)



At one intersection, as I waited for the green light, more validating lyrics including “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” came on.  I also had time to snap this picture (pic 4) of some trees on the opposite side of the road and whose branches puffed, drooped and arched by the weight of the white powder. It looked as if the trees were prostrating in front of Nature's king.  By this time, the sights outside and the sounds inside had already soothed my nostalgia and lifted my spirits. The same distinctive feelings, mood and memories of this wonderful time of the year had repeated their annual pilgrimage to my meditative soul. It was like taking a potent antidote for a chronic ailment and the healing had already started.



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 But just before the light turned green, two snow plows roared by, infringing on my stream of recollections, and dumping a huge blanket of wet snow on the hood and windshield. My angelic Christmas mood almost melted with the wet snow. Yet I smiled and let the wipers do their job on the darkly glass. I continued to drive to the game.

We lost. Some of the boys were teary-eyed and a couple of them sobbed. Frustration and disappointment were evident on the parents’ chilled faces made worse by the near taunting, loud cheers, screams, and celebration at the opposite side of the field.  That was cold, in more ways than one.

Again it was hard because it was the championship game and we lost.  But the parents and players agreed that it had been a great season.  At the same time, and at least for me, a greater season has started with the snow, the mood and the music all heralding the beginning of The Season.