Thursday, January 15, 2009

A Snow Fort

At the height of the blizzard the other day I kept seeing flash by the window a kid running. I just figured someone's rushing home, but I kept seeing it. Finally I decided to look out and make sure he was OK, since it was cold, windy, blustery, miserable.

He was over there digging a hole in a drift, which must have been a very hard bit of snow not to cave in on him. Why he was running by I don't know. That part's still a mystery. When I started looking he was crawling deep into it, pushing snow out.

It made me remember fondly some of our own childish antics from long ago, snow forts, snowball fights. I always had this one big thought as a kid that was never tested, although I think of it when I see coverage of avalanches on TV. My aunt's yard when down from the sidewalk, then back up to her house. I used to wonder, what if you were in that depressed part and suddenly snow covered you. Would you freeze to death, suffocate, or would you be able to push away some to allow yourself room to breathe, assuming air would show up from above? My own optimism in this thinking always had myself surviving easily, but I don't know now.

We used to make some snow houses, attempt an igloo type of structure, which is a lot harder to make than you'd guess, mostly though like this kid, digging a hole in a drift and crawling back there. If it caved in, no big disaster, except, I guess, the roof might weight 150 pounds.

At first I was thinking the kid should go in his house. The wind was crazy. But if he was comfortable doing it, it's all the same, good for him.

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