THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 9, 1996 TAG: 9601110568
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
As snow goes, the 5-incher that began falling Saturday night in South Hampton Roads was slush.
Inspector of Snowstorms hereabouts for 33 years, I'd give it a C-minus.
The second half of the storm is supposed to be coming up the Carolina coast, burshing early today, Monday, against Virginia Beach and the Eastern Shore; but the first half was a flop.
It was a bust for children, and, after all, what else is snow for, if not for the young and childish?
Driving around late Sunday, your inspector saw no snowmen, no sleds, not a single snowball. Just slush and plumes of water thrown by cars speeding through pools.
Only at the start of the snow Saturday night in a few neighborhoods were parents and offspring playing in it - throwing snowballs, building snowmen, creating snow angels.
That they did by lying on their backs in the snow and raising their arms from their sides rapidly to touch fingertips over their heads, casting against the snow an image of angels with wings.
Angels in the snow are relatively new. Wonder what budding Michelangelo figured that pattern?
Half a century or so ago, all we knew to do was build snow forts, throw snowballs, devour snow ice cream, a delicacy which I haven't eaten since 1958. Time to revive it.
The only being I know who wasn't disappointed with the snow was that chocolate Labrador retriever. Well, not chocolate. His sleek, silky coat is more the hue of root beer or deep bronze.
At first light, he was restless, tipping around the hosue, sensing something unusual going on outside.
In the sunroom with walls of tall, low-sill windows, he caught sight of the white sheet of snow stretched tight, tucked snug and smooth, fillling the field across the way, beckoning to him as the ideal place to cavort and frolic.
Barking, prancing, begging at the door and, finally released, he cleared the five front steps at one leap and dashed to the field, running all out as if he could and would take off.
Skimming swallow-like in figure eights around the field, such was his joy in the snow, he seemed as if he would never stop, plunging in the brush around a giant magnolia tree, bolting again into the open, his lithe figure moving in the distance now dark black against the white, tight-stretched canvas.
He rolled on his back, wallowing, throwing his legs in the air, and arose to dig at the snow as he does sand at the beach. He ran to fetch a tennis ball, over and over.
When the ball plopped in the snow, instead of bouncing, he stuck in his nose to pull it out, shaking it free of flakes, leaving the once-smooth field as pock-marked with holes as a billiard table.
When, once, the ball landed without his seeing it, he ran, sniffing, from hole to hole at a game of pool of his own devising.
Boomer gave the snow A-plus. by CNB