Snow in Southwest Alabama

Wow! It is snowing hard outside in rural Southwest Alabama. I can’t believe it. We will on occasion have a day of snow. This may last a whole weekend. The whole world stops for snow when it happens here. I know the people further north laugh at our behavior. They don’t know us Southerners. They are descended from the pilgrims. We come from the cavaliers and scoundrels with some younger sons thrown in for flavor. We will celebrate anything.

Isn’t Mardi Gras coming from a cowbell and rake (the Cowbell de Rakin Society) proof of that? It started Mardi Gras in Mobile just south of us, They are celebrating their own snow right now.  We do our snow celebrations in predictable ways. Those with children go out in snow with them, making snow men and having snowball fights, then coming in and making snow ice cream. The mature citizens have their own way of celebrating. I can speak for them because some people would put me in their ranks, though not to my face. We settle into the house with a good book, good music and movies we have recorded meaning to watch for months. We cook something hearty and warming, sharing with neighbors because we always cook too much. How can you cook a little stew or small pot of dry beans to eat with a small pone of cornbread? We treasure the chance to escape from as normally busy life and vegetate with the blessings of God who sent the snow and society which is taking its own vacation from normality.

My brother and grandson are the family weather men and disaster preparedness designees, We don’t have to sort through the weather bulletins. They do it for us. According to my brother, There is another snowstorm (for us that means a steady snow, not a call for St. Bernard dogs), right behind this one. That means the snow won’t be gone today. We will have snow the whole weekend. Since Monday is President’s Day, we’ll have a long weekend to extend our snow adventure. According to the family sources, the snow is going to be wet and heavy, which could cause some of us to loose electricity. I started to say power, but we are in control of the ourselves, which is our power. I’m using my power to charge my cell phone, halogen lanterns I keep for hurricane time and am cooking up way to much food in case a starving stranger comes to the door during the storm ( I have watched way too many old movies already, apparently!).

I visited with my 91 year old friend, Kathryn Tucker Windham last night. She gave me a book from her southern literature collection to ready while I am reveling in my solitude. It is called “The Last of the Whitfields”. It came out about the same time as “To Kill a Mockingbird” and was eclipsed by it, She recommends it highly, so I ‘m going to start it shortly. I hear the news on Public radio in the background. It says there has not been snow accumulation on the coastal plain like this  for 20 years.
I will enjoy the solitude for a day or two, but I can predict what we descendants of those cavaliers and scoundrels will do next. When we’ve had enough of the solitude, we’ll get together and throw parties to use up all the abundance of food we couldn’t help but cook. We are natural born cooks and natural born socializers. Where two or more are gathered, there will be a party. Remember who invented Mardi Gras! (photos courtesy of Billy Milstead, our resident GPS guru and motorcycle enthusiast.)