I've always loved the snow. When I was younger and growing up in Dallas, I used to get wordlessly excited whenever the weather man even mentioned that there was a slight chance of flurries. My eyes would strain as I examined the gray, blanketing clouds of winter, hoping for a glimpse of just a few crystalline flakes.

When it did snow, I was ecstatic. As soon as the first feathery snowflake touched the ground, I would rush outside, bundled up against the cold, alight in anticipation of a winter wonderland on the way, where no kids would have to go to school and frozen fun waited around every corner.

Then I would just walk around the neighborhood for awhile, watching the delicate glaze of Southern snow float to the ground, where it would disappear, melting immediately on the warm yards.

Unlike the harsh, direct patter of rain, the snow glided, swept by the breeze, making graceful, unpredictable arcs through the chill air. The flakes would settle on my outstretched tongue like powdered sugar, a sweet taste of winter.

As I traversed my quiet street, I would walk through a swirling universe of tiny flakes, a million glittering stars around me. It was exhilarating. Then, of course, came the snowmen and the snowball fights, my friends and I scooping snow eagerly from the tops of cars and bushes where it remained unmelted.

Snow was a rarity in Dallas. It was like a periodic trip to the amusement park. It was a surprising treat, like a gift that has no occasion.

Two years ago, my family moved to Philadelphia, so naturally my Christmas break took me eastward. It was there, last week, that the way I think about snow was changed forever.

Six o'clock came uneventfully on Jan. 17 in the City of Brotherly Love. I was up, and packing my car for the long, two day drive back to Oklahoma, when my mom appeared, her face stricken by a look of nervous anxiety.

"Doug, come inside. I think you should see something."

Judging by the expression on her face, I figured that either there had been a death in the family or the Cowboys had been disqualified from the playoffs. Nevertheless, I reluctantly followed her inside to hear the bad news.

Back inside the dark house, my mother gestured toward the glow of the television, which was tuned to the Weather Channel. The channel's stuffy weather man was clearly excited, pointing madly to a radar image, like a used car salesman selling the latest bargain.

On the radar was a huge red and green splotch that represented the biggest, baddest storm that I'd ever seen. The storm's icy jaws were closing in on Philadelphia, hemming the helpless home of the Liberty Bell in on all sides.

I couldn't possibly drive around it.

I couldn't possibly drive through it.

"You're not going anywhere," my mother elucidated.

"I guess I'm not," I sighed.

And for two days, the snow fell. It didn't fall in quiet flurries. It fell in a solid white sheet, with flakes the size of a quarter. It was oppressive and maddening to a guy from the South, where the weather, outside of an occasional tornado, never prevented you from going anywhere or doing anything. For two feverish days I stared out the window, helpless, snowbound.

When the snow finally stopped, it was three feet deep. The stuffy weather man was back, shouting nervously about records being shattered, about the "blizzard of the century" and I had a snow shovel in my hands.

For six hours the waist-high white stuff fought me, drifting over into places I had already shoveled, freezing in places so I had to hack through it. I didn't build any snowmen or have any snowball fights. It was all business, and I cursed the frozen, crystallized water with every foggy breath.

I was glad to escape the next day, heading south toward warmer climes. As I drove I decided that I could go a while without seeing so much as another flake of snow.

As for the next time I'm going to Philadelphia, it'll be during the summer.


Doug Wick is a chemical engineering senior.