ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 15, 1996 TAG: 9601150022
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Monty S. Leitch
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
SO, DID you get any snow last week?
Look out your window. Is it snowing at this moment?
Can you see your car yet?
Would you like to talk about something else for a change?
So would I. But I've been stuck inside here, playing with my computer, for over a week now. And I'm getting a little punchy, if you know what I mean.
Seems I've sort of lost control over my thoughts. There's nothing left on TV that I haven't seen already. Neither the paper nor the mail has been delivered in days. And I'm running out of novels that are worth the time.
What else is there but the snow? I'm even dreaming about it.
It's true. The other night, I dreamt of taking off in our four-wheel-drive truck down the mountain toward Roanoke. "That's not a good idea," I said in my dream.
We went anyway.
And then we turned up this unplowed side road. "Do you really think we ought to ... '' I gasped out in my dream.
My companion chuckled with glee.
But pretty soon, that virginal snow (no other tires had broken its surface yet) began to disappear. Less and less snow between us and the pavement! No more fishtailing through the drifts!
Suddenly, we dropped into a mountain valley shining with - spring! It was spring!
I swear! Not a snow bank in sight. Birds singing, flowers blooming, sparkling dew on all the grassy fields.
"What in the world ... ?" mumbled my companion.
Then, the road dead-ended.
"Yup, we're pretty isolated up here," some fellow told us when we asked directions. "Not too many folks find this place."
That was the scary part. Because, of course, the only way back out was - you guessed it - through the snow.
I told you I was getting a little punchy here. I woke up shivering, and went back to playing computer Solitaire.
In fact, I've played so much computer Solitaire in the past week that I've won half a dozen times.
I've also discovered - by consulting my Guinness Book of World Records CD (published in 1994) - that the record for a single snowstorm is 189 inches, which fell at Mount Shasta Ski Bowl, Calif., from the 13th to the 19th of February, 1959.
This same resource claims that the greatest depth of snow on the ground at any one time was 37 feet, 7 inches, which lay in Tamarac, Calif., in March 1911.
Did I hear someone say last week that California was the place he wanted to be?
Maybe I just imagined that, too.
My Encarta CD provided me with this tidbit: "Mean annual snowfall [in Virginia] increases westward from less than about 178 mm (about 7 inches) in the southeast to about 815 mm (about 32 in.) in the Cumberland Mountains region."
Right about now, neither of those figures sounds quite so mean, does it?
The next thing I'm gonna do is - I'm gonna start surfing the Net. I have all these "free" trial hours that came with the machine. Now, I also have all of this free time, too.
And plenty to chat about.
How much snow did you get?
Can you find your car yet?
Look out your window. Is it snowing there now?
MWF seeks mature fun-lover in warm climate; must have heated pool and jacuzzi.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB