Saturday night we went to a Grange meeting at Fern Hill, a rural community five miles south of Rainier, Columbia County, Oregon. After the meeting it was snowing outside and driving home through the swirling flakes brought back some memories of when it used to snow a lot more.
Some winters there was so much snow we couldn’t see the fence posts around our pasture because the snow was so deep. The Columbia River froze across with a thickness of ice strong enough for a man to walk across the river. Grandpa would tell us stories about the time a horse team pulled a wagon load of hay across the river at St. Helens. The Historical Society Museum has pictures of the event.
Unlike today.
Today a half inch of snow makes the news as a “winter storm” and becomes part of the media circus complete with reporters standing at “slick” spots around the city reporting every spin of the wheel as drivers, unaccustomed to driving in snow, slide to the curb side.
No doubt in the future some elderly gentleman will be telling his grandchildren about the ancient phenomena of snow and how the ground would turn white for a day or two.
byLarry
