The First Snow

The First Snow
Dennis Ginoza November 2, 2009


As we were traveling through Colorado, it was our hope to see the changing of the fall colors. In our hope, instead, we found green pine trees on the mountain slopes and the lower regions. The aspen had just begun to turn slightly, but not to our expectation.

Nature has its cycles, predictable, constant, and continous. This is our general sense. We also come to realize that nature has its quirks, shifts, and surprises. What we do know is that the sun rises and the sun sets. The tides rise and recede, the earth rotates on its axis and moves in its orbit around the sun, rainbows fill the sky as tiny rain drops and sun rays coincide. Nature is a beautiful thing.

So we ask, what happened to the changing of the leaves? In Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa, fall was at the threshold, but had not entered its time. It simply was late. Finally, in late October, in Iowa, the leaves began to change.

As I said earlier, nature has its quirks. The morning of October 12, 2009, when we awoke in Minneapolis, my wife went to the hotel window and she exclaimed: “It’s snowing!”

In the open field, there was a blanket of freshly fallen snow, an incredible sight, refreshing and delightful. A total surprise, we began a new day. Of course, I, born in Hawaii, living now in California, the first snow was a true joy. I hurried downstairs, got out to the fresh snow and, like a little boy, threw a bunch of snowballs.

There is always an excitement when it comes to the first snow. In my freshman year in college, in Iowa, the first night it snowed, another student and I from Hawaii went out barefoot and ran and skidded in the snow on the street. That little child in us came out to play.

One October, when I was teaching in Philadelphia, in my seventh grade math class, one of the students yelled out, “It’s snowing!” The students all got out of their seats and ran to the window. “Yeah, it’s snowing,” they called out. In such a moment, what else can you do, but just enjoy it.

My first Christmas away from home, I was visiting with my friend and his family in Ohio. The open field just back of their home was covered with fresh snow. My friend Duane said, “Let’s go out in the snow. I want you to make an angel.” I didn’t quite understand what he was talking about. I was from Maui. We grew up with sand, red dirt, and sugar cane fields. He showed me what to do. Then I laid on my back, moved my arms and made my first snow angel.

There is in all of our experiences, something new, something different, and something exciting. Riding a sea turtle, catching your first fish, riding a bike for the first time, dipping your toe in the Pacific Ocean if you’re from Kansas, or visiting Disneyland as a three year old. The first snow for one is just like that.

That evening it snowed in Minneapolis, the weather was reported, “Winter came two months early.” Fall just lingered and the leaves didn’t change like we had hope. Winter, on the other hand, came like a speeding train. This was another historic moment.

On October 19 and 20, Minnesota reported one of its earliest blizzards. The temperature dropped 50 degrees with a snowfall of fifteen inches. On October 10, 1977 2.4 inches of snow fell on Columbus Day. But that was not the earliest. On September 26, 1942, 1.7 inches fell on the Twin Cities. The St. Paul Dispatch reported even a prior snowfall: “The earliest trace was September 15, 1916.”

The most talked about snowfall was the Halloween Blizzard of 1991. A single snow storm lasted from October 31 to November 3. A record 28.4 inches fell on Minneapolis
and St. Paul.

Each day, we can get up bored, worried, and troubled. Or, we can greet the day with expectation, gratitude, and excitement, thus see the world in a new way. Life is filled with the riches of nature and experiences. The first snowfall brings to light the new, a joy, and another step in time. We remind ourselves, as we look closer at a snow flake, no two snow flakes are alike. Each is different. Such is true to each of us.

Might we begin each day knowing our own uniqueness. The first snow brings to mind this truth. Like little beads on a string it brings together a joy to behold.