As a lad I was quite dedicated to the Blessed Mother. Even though I’m no longer a practicing Catholic, I still experience a devotion to her, it’s just different now.
My parents rarely went to a social function without me, and when they did, it rarely lasted beyond my bedtime, so a sitter, usually from the family, would be all that was necessary. On January 20, 1962 my parents went somewhere unusual or far away, I guess, and I was invited to spend the night with Aunt Marian and Uncle Bill. When I spent overnight time with relatives, it was almost always with Aunt Mary and Uncle Jack, so this was special.
Their house was also special – or maybe all houses are when you’re a kid. It was a sprawling “U” shape of Marian’s design that embraced a courtyard with a brick barbecue and a hanging light fixture made from an old wagon wheel. There was a large living room with a grand stone fireplace and a picture window, an ample dining room, and a huge eat-in kitchen. The master bedroom was in front (the house was generously set back from the street) while Shirley and Linda’s bedroom was in back, and included a number of really cool builtins. My cousins were living on their own by then, so I got to stay in their room. I can still remember Marian tucking me in that night. I can still remember how happy I was to be there. And I can still remember praying to Mother Mary for snow.
What prompted that particular plea, I don’t know for certain, though I do have a dim memory of Marian (who hailed from Indiana and knew about such things) saying to my folks as they departed on the front porch that the air felt like snow. But everyone had laughed, so that I took it at all seriously… Well, maybe it was just the idea; staying over in a special place, then to wake the next morning to a winter snowscape, well that would be just fine.
And so I prayed like I’d never prayed before that it would snow. In Sunnyvale, California that had not seen snow in thirty years.
I woke early, just as light was beginning to glow. The color of the dawn seeping through the shades was distinctive, odd, exciting. My pulse picked up. I wondered if anyone else were awake. Should I go into the living room, see what lay beyond the picture window? Would that disturb anyone? If my prayer had been answered, would it matter if I woke the rest of the household? I mean, that would be a very big deal.
I was still debating the ethics of a guest being the one to herald the day, when my aunt cracked the door open.
“Are you awake?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, you might want to get up, now. There’s a surprise.”
I bounded out of bed and into my robe and probably almost knocked Marian over in the hall as I ran to look outside. There it was. Their vast lawn was a sea of sparkling white. The trees looked like a Christmas card. The street was still pure and untrammeled.
“Call Mommy and Daddy!”
“They called me. Your mother likes to be up early. She thought you’d want to see this.”
I crossed myself a dozen times once Marian left for the kitchen (she was Congregationalist, I wasn’t sure she would understand).
Uncle Bill was already outside, sweeping down the driveway so when my folks got there, they’d have a place to park. Marian made hot chocolate. That morning was, like, the best a kid could ask for.
Marian and Bill took regular trips – well, to all over the world, but that’s a future story – to Lake Tahoe, so even though Bill was a Sunnyvale boy, he knew about driving in icy conditions and such. For Mom and Dad it was the first time for snow since 1932.
I’ve since lived in the northeastern United States, lived there for thirty years. I imagine myself as being over the thrill of snow, though – especially from inside a warm house – I must admit it as one of the most extravagant events nature has to offer. And it’s good to remember being a kid, and what it was like for a meteorological anomaly to be so extraordinarily exhilarating.
We drove all over town. Everything was transformed. Marian pointed out houses with melted patches on their roofs. Their occupants were up and stirring; they had turned on the heat.
“Now see, how wonderful it is to have someone with us with experience of snow,” cooed my mother. Marian was a teacher, and a good one, too. Mom could not have issued a better invitation. We were, from that point, regaled with stories of horse-drawn sleighs and of skating on frozen ponds back in Indiana. The magic for this boy was thick.
It was still early when my folks and I got home. We lived across from the city hall, a modern complex of handsome, shed-like buildings surrounded by artificial hills and valleys of lawn. Snow sat untouched on all of it, except for one set of footprints that ran up the steepest hill and down again at an angle.
“Maryanne.”
Our neighbor’s granddaughter was about my age. We were old friends, and I liked her a lot. But she was so infuriatingly impulsive. Could she not have waited a few hours at least before she marred the pristine beauty of our view?
An hour later we were both on that lawn throwing snowballs at each other.
Photo: snow at the Lopin ranch, 1932