Winter's in the Air!

                        My mother always said you spend the summer getting ready for winter.

That never made any sense to me when I was growing up. I didn't connect the dots-between the clearing of gardens and washing of windows inside and out and the replacing of screens with storm windows and the fixing up going on-with the changing of the season. I never realized the sheets, along with sweaters washed in Woolite and blankets taken out of cedar chests and anything else that had been packed away in mothballs, were on the clothes line probably for the last time until tulips and daffodils announced the next season's impending arrival. I never questioned the picnic table and enamel chairs disappearing from the back yard as leaves swirled about. I guess I thought boots and mittens, scarves and snowsuits just appeared from nowhere as bikes and roller skates could be found hanging back in the garage. Slowly like molasses coming out of a jar-menus changed without my noticing from hotdogs and potato salad to boiled dinners and scalloped potatoes and ham. I never knew my father had to take the car in to get the oil changed and tires checked. I never realized the shovel and scrapers had to be found.

I only knew that when those first snowflakes fell it was magical. I would grab my boots and mittens, scarf and snowsuit and run outside and play in the snow. When the creek froze I'd get my skates kept right where they always were when needed. I'd grab the shovel when there was a lot of snow and make paths in the fluffy flakes or forts with my snow block maker. Everything was where it should be-as it would be again when snow became spring showers and snow suits and snow boots and shovels and skates and snow block makers disappeared-for a little while-with no effort at all-or any that I was aware of back then.

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