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The Last Snowman
A childhood memory, frozen in time
Growing up in suburbia midwest in the 90’s meant snow, ice, and wet winters. As a child I remember huge icicle stalactites forming ominously on the garage gutters, almost as tall as me. I also remember chasing Dad’s old two-stroke engine snowblower down the driveway, with the family dog, laughing at the snow being blasted into the air. My brother and I made snowmen in the yard, and Dad gave us charcoal for eyes from the bag leftover from summer grilling. Somehow, we always had a carrot for a nose, and Mom handed them to us through the door, so we wouldn’t track wet snow gear in the house.
One evening it was close to dark, but we were still playing and making a snowman in the front yard. In perhaps one of my first instances of self-and-surrounding awareness, I looked up at the sky. It was a familiar purple-ish hue from the light reflecting off the endless, low-lying clouds that seemed to color our whole world gray for several months out of the year. I looked to our house — a humble, box-shaped ranch home that was painted a shade of light pink, with big evergreen bushes in the front. The light was fading fast, but through the 90’s lace curtains in the windows, I saw warmth. The lights were on in the living room and the kitchen, flashes of Mom moving between the pantry and the stove, making dinner. The TV was on, likely either…
