Bad poetry

I had read somewhere that the natives of Alaska have something like fifteen different nouns for snow. They have different nouns for different types of snow. They've got one word for fine, powdery snow. They have another one for wet snow, and one for the fine, icy crystal snow, et cetera, et cetera. The one description for snow they have which I found most captivating was a word or phrase for the first snowfall of the winter. You see, out in Alaska, unlike us here in the continental US, you really are on a frontier, and if something goes wrong out there in the wilderness, nobody will rescue you. They won't rescue you because they aren't gonna find you, and they aren't gonna find you because nobody is going to look for you. And, every year, I am sure, there is someone out there who stayed late into the fall for whatever reason out there in the wiilderness. Well, then this special snow starts falling. The first snow of the winter, and once it comes down, the snow will only grow deeper with each passing day. Anyone caught out there in the wilds when this first snow falls understands the name for this snow. Because anyone caught out there in the wild is not likely to survive. This snow is so important, they call it termination dust.

There ain't much snow in Texas. Yeah, sure, it snows, and you usually get an inch or two each year, but that's about the end of it. Texas is more of a crucible, or a furnace. Each winter, you get a reprieve from the heat for a few months, and then it is back to sweating it out. There is no runnning from the heat. You get hot weather nine months out of the year, and you learn to deal with it. I grew up in Virgina, and we had some good snow there. Of course, my memories of snow from Virginia color my opinion, since it was usually associated with snow forts, sledding, snow ball fights, and ambushing cars with snowballs before runnning off when drivers would slam on the brakes, and get out to yell at us (yes, mom, dad, I did that, I don't remember if I ever got caught, but I sure as heck enjoyed it). Virginia was the snow of childhhod, and days home from school. There are even memories of some stolen moments with a dark-haired beauty walking back to her house late at night. Romantic for a teenager, bloody foolish for an adult. That's a whole other story best summed up by Bob Seger's line that "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." Cold cheeks. Steaming breath.

I didn't see much snow at first in the Corps. I got sent to hot Islands like Parris Island, Cuba, and the like. Of course, when they did send me somewhere cold, the Corps sure made up for lost opportunities. I went through mountain/arctic warfare training, and I sure as Hell saw a lot of snow, then! It's supposed to be one of the tougher regular schools next to SERE (Survival, Evasion, Rescue, Escape) school in the Marine Corps. I have a lot of strange memories from there. Like watching my urine bounce off of a tree because it had frozen. I remember the snow cave I made to shelter in for the night, and how the sides melted from my body heat, and then froze again into this icy surface. Because the opening was very narrow to keep the wind and warm air in, while the inside was larger to accomodate me moving around, I felt very much a pospicle man's equivalent of a ship in a bottle. I also remember finding some froxen animal there under the snow that had obviously perished some time before where I was going to sleep, and thinking that I needed to sleep more than I needed to get away from the carcass as we shared a tomb. There was also the eery near silence of crossing a meadow in moonlight on cross-country skis, M16 in hand, overwhites glowing under the luminous night. Ghostly white. Whispering death.

I have some very cherished memories of the snow. Some cherished for the joy themselves, others cherished for the cost of attaining them. Today, I walked out of the department and it was dead dark. There had been a flux in angina cases. The sure sign of cold weather setting in, with people out and about, while their peripheral vasculature clamped down to conserve heat, driving up flow resistance, thusly increasing the cardiac workload. While I had been busting my tail working on the sick, the weather had been slowly dropping snow onto the land. When I stepped outside, the environment had gone from sunlit with a hint of white on the grass, to dark, still, white and smooth. While I had seen more snow, I had not seen this much in a while, just the few inches that it was. I began the walk to the apartment growing more and more convinced with each step that despite my reluctance to further stress our constrained finances, I would likely end up with a really good overcoat and set of boots before the week is out. Along the path home, I passed through a small stand of trees, and I could not help but remember the snow from before. In my minds eye, I could imagine the line of Marines skulking wraithlike beside me on one side, while lovestruck teenagers sequestered themselves on the other.

Cold Cheeks, steaming breath.
Ghostly white, whispering death.
Termination dust.

Respectfully Submitted,
-doc Russia