Snow again

When snow falls -- even as little as we had yesterday afternoon -- I stay home, where it's warm and safe.

Sometimes I build a fire in the woodstove just because watching the flames reminds me of my childhood, when snowfalls made everything seem somehow more special. My mom used to slow-cook a soup or a stew and make yeast rolls or cornbread, because she thought it warmed her family. She was, I think, correct.

Sometimes I do the same. You can get creative and make a soup or stew using most anything you have on hand. The secret is in the broth (a slow process) and the simmering of the whole concatenation all day in a big pot on the back burner. The aroma that fills the house is almost as good as the taste of whatever eventually comes out of the pot. Almost.

I stay at home because I don't like being on the streets and roads. What worries me is not my driving. I'm troubled by all the other drivers.

Richmonders don't know how to drive in the snow. Not even with as little snow as we had yesterday afternoon. Some don't slow down much. Most fail to plan ahead or anticipate what other drivers might do. There's a litany of things Richmonders don't know about safe driving when the streets are snowy or slushy or icy.

Yesterday afternoon, I had an appointment in Carytown, and it started snowing while I was inside. By the time I walked out 90 minutes later, snow covered the streets and was falling hard. You couldn't go six blocks without seeing some driver who had run into something, either another car, a ditch, a tree, or a lamp pole. Local police reported 60 snow-related accidents in three hours.

I made it home safely. But slowly.

I lived in a German mountain village for three years in the late 1960s. I learned how to drive in the snow and ice because the roads were snowy or icy all winter.

You can see a live image of the streets of that village, Bitburg, by clicking here. As I write this, it's the middle of the night in Bitburg. There's snow against the village gutters and the streets look icy. The temperature is 27 degrees.

Summers were glorious in the Eifel Mountains in Germany -- while they lasted. We always thought we were lucky if the temperature reached as much as 80 degrees on July 4. It reminded me a lot of the Appalachian region of Virginia. But the winters were cold. Very cold.

By the time I got home yesterday evening, it was dusk. The temperatures were falling further below freezing. It was good to walk into a warm house.

It was even better to have a bowl of rich beef, carrot and tomato stew. (I used a few of my home-frozen bags of Hanovers from last summer.) I made the stew the night before with a heavy hand on the garlic, basil and oregano.

I built a fire in the woodstove.

Life felt almost as good and safe as it was when I was a child.

Almost.