snow! here!

southern snow is something to marvel at indeed. it started snowing last night around 6:30 here, and then kept going for hours until it turned to slush in the middle of the night sometime. last night i couldn't stop staring at it fall, like i've never seen snow before in my life (when in fact, i just spent 2+ weeks up north, and got my fill), but i think that's because usually it snows here ONCE EVERY 3-4 YEARS.

unsurprisingly, 140 closings/delays have been reported ... i'd like to say something snotty about how it's because people down here go crazy when it snows and suddenly can't drive and after an inch of snow there are cars littering the ditches (true!), but the truth is that the state just has no plows, no salt, no sand to help out the roads in these crises. and while cars that were driving 10 mph can litter ditches all they please, i think my heart would break if i saw a school bus in a ditch.

last night i went to wal-mart an hour or so after it started snowing, and it was really coming down, hypnotizing me on the road like a snow-kaleidoscope, swirling in big, wet fluffy clumps. such a beautiful sight. everyone at wal-mart was in a state of confusion and happy awe. people were underdressed. people were overdressed. when i was done shopping, the parking lot now seemed to be under an inch of snow, at least, and people were SNOW-DRUNK, in a good way. kids were throwing snowballs and yelling, old people were laughing, a wal-mart dude actually took my shopping cart back to the "cart corral" FOR ME (then giddily told me to "drive safe!"). the best was this little african-american baby, sitting in the shopping cart next to the family's minivan while his mom was loading the groceries into the car. he was just smiling with his little hands on the cart handle, smiling up at the snow in the dark with his tongue out, hoping to catch some of that magic there while it lasted.

[p.s. pic of augusta road (above) in greenville was a "reader-submitted" photo taken last night and submitted to GreenvilleOnline.]