Published: February 15, 2008 10:02 pm         

There really are some good uses for that ice

My pal Maude, who occupies the adjoining columns, asked what I think of the snow.

“My son sent me pictures of their snow out north of Chicago and it is horrendous,” she said.

It could be worse. We might be living in one of those places that has already broken a record for most snow during a winter, or is about to do so, and whose residents may well be muttering, “Global Warming, my (beast of burden).”

I told Maude my love of the snow died after I had to start driving through it, but that’s not totally true.

Snow doesn’t bother me unless there is too much of it, because I have boots and an all-wheel-drive automobile, but I detest ice. People slip and fall on ice, their cars collide with each other and slide off the road into ditches because of ice, and it’s nasty to chip off a windshield.

Ice belongs in a glass with bourbon or a Bloody Mary wrapped around it.

Winter was something I once enjoyed. My home place has hot-water radiators, and there’s no better heat. I often curled up on the floor next to the radiator in my bedroom when I was a kid because it was warm and cozy, there was a gentle hissing from the pipes, and it was as comforting as rain drumming on a tin roof — which I had during the warm months.

Winter was a time for making cookies, and my mom always let me help her. There were chocolate chip cookies, which are at their best when they’re still warm and soft and the chips are a little gooey, and sugar cookies, ginger snaps and coconut macaroons. Macaroons require a bit of construction, but they have a wonderful chewy texture, and ours were so good that some of our older friends still remember them.

Mom had recipes stashed in envelopes all over the place, and I’ve found the instructions for most of our cookies. The molds for Santa Claus, star and Christmas tree-shaped sugar cookies were stored downstairs in an old table, and I really must find a reason to use them again.

I may have spent almost as much time in the kitchen with my mother — particularly when she was cooking bacon for breakfast — as I did down in the basement with my father when he was working in his wood shop.

One glorious evening after it had snowed, Dad sat my small self on my sled and towed me downtown to the newsstand to get us a couple of hot chocolates. We bought a plastic model of a delicately whiskered tiger head and brought it home to assemble and paint.

Our tiger fell from the wall where he hung one day and broke into tiny shards that couldn’t be restored, but I can still see him and touch him whenever I want to. The funny thing is that years after I had grown up, I met the fellow who owned that newsstand. He remembered my dad and me, and that my grandfather had cut his hair. He also remembered the tiger and how popular it was with his customers.

Grandfather Jackson passed away before I was born, and if any pictures of his sleigh remain, I haven’t been able to find them. I do have a string of his sleigh bells stashed away in a safe place.

My mother told me what it was like, when she was a little girl, to go for a sleigh ride on the nights when there was a crusty new snow. She and her brother Lohr and my grandparents bundled up in warm clothes and took armfuls of blankets to wrap up in. Off they went through the countryside, the horse trotting effortlessly in front of them and the snow hissing beneath the runners on the sleigh. Mom would give the bells a shake to make them jingle while she talked, and that tickled me.

A few days ago I went to visit my adopted sister Carole and her husband Lenny, who’ve retired and moved back to her old home place in the country. I hiked up the hill to the woods where I had literally grown up and walked down to the place where I made my best shot ever on a deer ... 75 yards away with open sights on a bolt-action rifle, and he was running at flank speed.

I passed the stand of pine trees where I once emerged at the end of the day’s last deer drive to find my friend Basil Martin standing alone in the snow.

“Didn’t see anything,” he said, “but I figured you’d be coming out of there before long and saved this for us.” He reached into his coat pocket and brought forth an unopened half-pint of ginger brandy.

The snow began coming faster, and it crackled faintly as it fell to the ground out of a crisp, utterly calm sky. Nothing else moved or made a sound, and Basil and I were warm and dry in our hunting clothes and boots. We unloaded our rifles, slung them over our shoulders and talked quietly as the evening darkened and the snow whispered around us and dusted our heads and shoulders.

We smoked a couple of cigarettes, finished the brandy, and Basil re-capped the bottle and stuck it into his pocket. Then we took our time crunching down the hill to the warm cabin where our friends, a hot dinner and a shower, a whiskey and some TV and a bit of conversation before bedtime were waiting.

But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight, so very far away, maybe it’s only yesterday ... .

So Zager and Evans sang, and so I can close my eyes and go back to any of these places whenever I want.

I don’t stay there too long, though, for today is good, and I’m eager to see what lies ahead.

There’s no reason I should dislike winter. It’s been too good to me.