Snow

This past weekend we had the first snow of the season. It was only a dusting, but for a brief while big fat, wet flakes were falling fast and hard and it looked like we might have an early blizzard. Fortunately it didn't last long. Unfortunately, the wind and unseasonably-cold temperatures did. Yesterday, several thousand people in my little part of the world were without power for about eight hours. My wife, son and dogs went to my mother-in-law's house and I headed off to work; both locations being unaffected by the outage.

But I digress. Speaking of snow. Here's a video clip to warm your Tuesday. Irving Berlin's paean to Snow from the 1954 hit musical White Christmas starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen.

I love the movie and I love this number in particular. The song is set in the club car of an express train heading north from Florida. I've always had an inexplicable love of trains and one of the great regrets of my life is that I wasn't alive to travel by train during the golden age of passenger rail travel. I suppose it appeals to the romantic in me. Bing, Danny and the girls make snow seem so appealing, don't they? It's a sweet song, not one of Irving's best, but delivered with such sincerity that you can't help but want to run out and frolic in the snow.

Of course, life is always more fun in old Hollywood musicals. The truth of the matter is that I hate winter and snow in particular. Sure, there is great beauty in a country landscape the morning after a snowstorm; the sunshine reflecting off the snow-covered trees, branches dripping with ice cicles. And I'll admit there are a few snow-related activites that I begrudgingly enjoy (sledding, snowball fights, building snowmen and snow forts with my son). And thanks to Irving Berlin, I've been brainwashed into longing for a white Christmas. Still, if I had my way, winter would exit December 26 and take all traces of snow with it. Living in New England as I do, it's unlikely that will ever happen even with Global Warming (speaking of which - as I write this it is 7 degrees outside - damn your lies, Al Gore).