Let it snow, let it snow ...

Whenever nature brings a snow day, I can't help but remember the granddaddy of all storms.

I was a kid, visiting my grandparents' farm in Minnesota over winter break, when the sky opened and started dumping what would end up being an almost inhuman amount of snow.

It stormed through the night, we woke to a bleached-white landscape, the silence unbroken even by the languid voices of the local radio personalities which usually sing-songed from the kitchen clock radio.

I don't know how much there was in inches, only that the snow kept falling, the wind kept blowing and, being way out there in the country like we were, the power went out. I was pretty sure we all were going to die out there in the frozen wilderness.

But my grandparents were unfazed. My grandpa stoked the wood-fired furnace, my grandma toasted sandwiches on an oil heater and helped my brother and me think of things to do when the hours grew long. Outside, the storm continued to blow.

It wasn't a snowpocalypse or snowmageddon or even a blizzaster –  it was just winter, even during that exceptionally heavy storm. I think about that on days like this as I wait for the snow crews to wind their way around to my little dead-end street.

“Wah, wah, wah,” my mom said even before “hello” when she called to check in on us this morning. “How much did you get?" Even though the snow was up over my knees when I shoveled this morning, I knew she wouldn't be impressed. Up where she lives in southern Minnesota, they've got more than 60 inches on the ground – have had snow up over the top of the mailbox for months now. Yeah, but that's what you signed up for, living so far north, I protested. No sympathy.

“We call you guys whiners because we're envious of the time and attention you're getting,” my brother said in a text a little while later. He, too, was just checking in to see how Mother Nature had treated us.

Truth is, everyone gets a little excited by snowstorms – even if they have to experience it vicariously. Even they live Up North and get more than their fair share.