We got our first snow of the season this evening. It was snowing as I was driving into Pittsburgh to teach my class, but stopped by the time I got there. As I finished my lecture, a couple of my students pointed out that it had started snowing. They seemed pretty excited. “This is our first snow,” they told me. I cracked a big grin. I love snow, but there’s nothing better than witnessing someone else experience it for the first time.
It took me back to my sophomore year of high school. My marching band had been invited to march in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. We spent much of the day before walking around Manhattan. I went to the top of one of the twin towers. I saw Rockefeller Center.
We had to be lined up at 5:00 in the morning. And wouldn’t you know, for the first time in something like twenty years, it snowed the morning of the parade. There was a good five inches on the ground. And it was cold. We had winter uniforms, but we weren’t wearing those. I remember standing on top of the grates where the warm air would occasionally blow up from the subway. We stood there watching our band director chat up Miss America. He claims he went on a date with her after the parade. I’m a drummer, so I didn’t wear gloves. By the time we started the parade, I couldn’t feel my fingers.
I also remember that there was a band there from Hawaii. Rather than fly in to New York, they had bussed all the way across the country, performing places as they went. More than one of their busses had broken down, and so only part of their band had made it. The rest were strewn out across the U.S. Those who were there were extremely excited. It was the first time they had seen snow. I’ll never forget that.
And then there was the year that IxDA’s Interaction conference was held in Seattle: 2019. I understand that Seattle doesn’t actually get much snow. On Wednesday, we started hearing about a big snowstorm that was expected to hit on Friday. That afternoon, I received a notification that might flight home Saturday morning had been canceled just due to the expectation of snow. That was a problem, because my church was going to be celebrating the tenth anniversary of our contemporary service, and there was no way I was going to miss that. My band was counting on me to be there. Alaska Air told me they could get me on a flight Tuesday. Screw that. I booked a flight out of Portland Saturday morning and then reserved a rental car from a place just around the corner from my hotel.
Sure enough, it started snowing Friday. Seattle doesn’t know how to deal with snow, so it just shut down. We were supposed to have our closing party in the Seattle Museum of Pop Culture, but they canceled on us. There we all were, wrapping up the Interaction Awards at the Fisher Pavilion with the snow coming down outside. Kiat Lim, our Regional Coordinator from Korea, was there with his wife taking pictures with a look of awe on his face. He explained that it was the first time they had seen snow. I so enjoyed watching them go outside and play in it.
I was up at the crack of dawn the next morning, dragging my suitcase through maybe three inches of snow to stand at the door of the car rental waiting for them to open. The roads were a little dicey in places, but there was hardly anyone else on them, and I know how to drive in the snow. I made it to Portland, caught my flight, and was in church the next morning.