Uphill Both Ways

The past few years living here in the South, it has become very evident that not only do they not know what snow is, but they have no idea how to handle its effects when a little shows up. There is somewhat of a paranoia hysteria attached to the weather in this area, probably because the weather is fairly stable overall. When there is a hint of snow, preparations are made to basically shut the region down. And shut down they do !!

After thinking about this each time, I felt that it was necessary for me to add to my blog, how winters were back when I was growing up, and how we dealt with the inevitable snow and cold temperatures that we would get every year.

When I was a kid and it snowed in Waseca, it snowed. Boy did it snow, and did it blow. We regularly got prairie blizzards that created huge snowdrifts and bitter cold arctic temperatures that really made you sit up and pay attention. Did the buses run? Most times they did, and on the rare occasions that they didn't, the schools remained open. So what did the kids do? We walked to school like we always did. One foot ahead of the other, cold and breaking through the drifts, we did what we always did. Climate conditions only stalled us, they never defeated us. There were no snow days, or make up days - there were just school days. There were no temperature restrictions on when we went out at recess. When it was recess, we went outside no matter what temperature it was because that was just the way it was. There were no crybaby's in the crowd. There were no over protective parents lined up at the principals office. There were no SUV's lined up to pick up little precious. We just did what we normally did and were never the worse for wear.


It is of course, different today. I believe it is a combination of soft kids, wussy parents, a lazy society and a finger trigger suit mentality that prevails. It is sad. The new generation will never be as tough and as hardened to handle the hardships, that will undoubtedly come their way. An inch of snow on the road that shuts down life, is only a bad omen of things to come. I do hope however, that somehow someone will come to their senses and realize that this way of life only restricts and holds back the resilient spirit that we are all born with. We can do anything and that might even mean, walking uphill both ways.