SNOW WALK

Oh I know I will have many of these but this was my first snow walk of the season. First off the temp was 24 degrees and that meant I needed warmer walking clothes, in this case that meant fleece coat, mittens, hat, etc. Still just wore my tennis shoes tho – which was fine.

As I began it was hail coming down and I figured this wouldn’t last long so off I went. Wasn’t long before it was snow and it was coming down pretty damn seriously – hey, the streets were white, wind blowing and snow blowing, I call that serious! And yes, it was cold – mostly the wind.

However it was a grand walk – brisk and one that definitely told me to keep moving, don’t stop to enjoy the sights and, fool if this happens again, wear a damn scarf around your face – this sheet is cold! So having lectured myself I came back and did my yoga workout (mild form I assure you) and now I shall cool down and then, well, time to do a little house cleaning – that damn vacuum doesn’t run by itself and the dust fairy is on strike, so that means I gotta do the dusting too!

While walking I recalled one Thanksgiving tradition that I wonder if other families do? Name exchange! Hey I was from a big family, seven kids and there was no way in hell we were gonna buy gifts for 9 people (remember we had Mom and Dad too). So we drew a name and yes, Mom and Dad were in the hat too. Oh ya, there was a minimum you had to spend, something like $2 – come on, it was my childhood – not today’s youth! It was fun and we tried to guess who had our name and usually got surprised Christmas morning by who actually had our name.

We were not a rich family, at least not financially and it always amazed me that our parents managed to give us memorable Christmas mornings. We got a lot of homemade stuff and man, I’d love to have those things today, homemade mittens, hats, sweaters, vest, and socks and so on – they were the best and man, did they keep you warm. We always got some kind of game which could and did involve the entire family. Now we rarely played it on this day but as we were on school break, we did play it and at times it got pretty loud and tempers would flare but all in all it was fun.

But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves – first let’s celebrate Thanksgiving, right? I love this holiday and it’s because family gets together and there’s lots of food. My mother was inclined to try some new recipe at Thanksgiving and as your plate was piled high with food, no wonder everything was given a seal of approval. Rarely did you come across a food that you wanted to spit out – not that spitting was allowed but hey, that’s a good use for a napkin!!!

So, if you can, get outside and take a walk today – be careful tho – it’s a tad slick in places but man it sure is fun. I'll try to share more turkey day memories later on in the week -- there's a boat load!

Norwood Ice Rink is just waiting ---and soon we all can skate on it and have our usual winter fun -- hurrah. Thanks