Spring Thaw

 One year when we lived on Melrose Avenue---it must have been early 1969 or 1970, the backyard filled up with a great amount of snow that accumulated unmelted over the winter. This is normal in Iowa, where the snow may not melt completely before the next snowfall, such that it builds up over the weeks and months. 

I don't know if it was a particularly snowy winter. When one is four and five years old, one does not have a good sense of the history of weather. Everything seems novel and extraordinary. I am ever amused when I hear someone talk about how the weather in some place has changed from when they were a child, as one hears often.

Winter was not my favorite season as a child. It shut down all the outdoor activity I enjoyed. It was a chore to go outside and walk through deep snow, or slip on the ice. Our old Volkswagens did not have proper heat. Sitting shivering in a cold car was part of my childhood. I always looked forward to the spring thaw, when the great accumulations of ice and snow would begin to melt. It felt like the world coming alive again.

I should note that over the years, I came to change my mind about winter in a big way, There are few thins that delight me more than falling snow. A decade ago, I even became obsessed with snowshoeing for a year or two. I still own the high-end pair I splurged for, when I was in California. I savor the shortening of days and the coziness of the chilly weather.

Looking back, I realize that much of my aversion to winter was because I adopted the opinion of my mother, who hated winter and the short days. In Colorado, she would moan upon hearing a forecast of an early October snow, which is not uncommon. To the end of her life, she took great joy in proclaiming the lengthening of days, and also the coming of daylight savings time. She would celebrate March with the assertion that it would "go out like a lamb." I think it is no accident that she died in the first week of November, just in time to avoid the changing of the clocks and the shortening of evenings of yet another winter.

I always looked forward to the spring thaw, when the great accumulations of ice and snow would begin to melt. It felt like the world coming alive again. What I remember about the snow at our Melrose that year was the spring thaw.

When the snow began to melt, the water began to drain down towards the street alongside our unit, on the side opposite the driveway. It came down the yard like a river emptying into the gutter in the street. I was enthralled by this, walking around examining it along its length. It was like a private little geography all for me, a miniature world I could explore.

It was an early manifestation of my fascination with observation of flowing water, something that is difficult to do where I live on a regular basis. Whenever there is a chance to do so, I generally seize it.  I am perfectly capable of sitting beside a flowing stream and watching the water for a hour or two. During my driving years, it was one of my favorite activities.In recent years, when we were still driving up each summer to stay in Estes Park, as soon as we crossed the Colorado border and started driving up into the San Juans, I insisted on pulling over at the first chance to appreciate an alpine stream, such as at a picnic area of a national forest.

It occurred to me once that this is a more common activity among men that I realize, but that for many men, it takes the form of some form of angling, such as flying fishing. To me that is overkill for what I need.