Commentary By Adam Smith

The North Jefferson News



Alabama’s bread and milk companies will have a profitable first quarter, thanks to a smattering of snow that fell into some yards over the weekend.

As per usual, the weather guys didn’t get it exactly right. They did, in fact, predict we’d be getting snow.

The two-to-five inches they initially predicted turned out to be only half an inch in my yard anyway.

However, when I awoke the next morning to see small, white dust particles falling from the sky and actually sticking to cars and rooftops, I was pleasantly surprised. By about 9 a.m., there was enough on my car to make a snowball. It was probably the first snowball I had made in seven years or more.

Unfortunately, by the time I drove out to Anniston to visit my family on Sunday, it was gone. All gone. Only the bitter chill of disappointment remained.

My roommate and I played host over the weekend to our friend Ed, from Chicago. Ed has a habit of bringing his Chicago weather down to Alabama, which may explain the snowfall. However, Ed found the “heavy snow” prediction quite amusing and after the light dusting of snowfall had ended, he kept repeating “heavy snow” and chuckling about our major snowfall. Ed also found it funny that the local networks pre-empted regularly scheduled programming to broadcast three to four hours of Alabamians playing in the flurries and making snow angels on the ground in a mix of slush, leaves and pine straw.

In Chicago, snowfalls of eight inches or more is not uncommon and the people who live there keep right on living. People don’t stay home from work and kids don’t get to stay home from school because of a major snowfall.

We explained to Ed that in Alabama, just the prediction of snow will send Alabamians rushing to the grocery stores to buy eggs, milk and bread. I’ve always wondered why we find it necessary to have the ingredients for French toast on hand whenever we believe snow is coming.

Funnier still, no matter how little snow we get, we find the need to go out and play in it, just like our neighbors to the north. We rarely get enough to throw more than a few snowballs or make the world’s smallest snow man.

All the same, the wint’ry mix was nice while it lasted. The snowfall may have been pitiful, but for a few hours, it was beautiful to see rooftops and treetops covered in a white blanket of precipitation. The winter is still young and perhaps more snow will find our warm state.

If it happens, I’ll be coming to your house for French toast.