Let it snow!

 

I got my driver’s license in July, 1961. By the time the snow was flying that year, I had enough miles under my belt that I felt absolutely immortal behind the wheel. That’s me, looking like the cocky little fuck that I was in my pegged pants (white socks!) and shades.

My friends and I reveled in the northern Indiana snow and I did stuff with my parents’ 1960 Ford Galaxie  and 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 that would have given them heart attacks if they had known.

I loved to throw the car into a four-wheel drift (when there was no other traffic around), break the back end loose, and do donuts on open ground and golf courses.

And, yes, we loved to drive on the local golf course – get up to 40-50 mph in 5 inches of snow on the fairway and put the car into a high-speed dizzying spin.

There were bad moments too. Like getting stuck in a ditch a time or two coming home from a late date in Lafayette. These were mid-20th century cars with two-wheel rear drive, no antilock brakes, no power steering and, of course, no seatbelts and a steel dashboard waiting to bash your brains out.

It was an unforgiving way to learn to drive on ice and snow, but we who survived knew how to recover from a skid and knew not to panic when the back end broke loose. You had a deeper understanding of the limits of traction and the relationship between speed and control.

Sadly, a lot of folks here in Arkansas never went to “snow school.” I am reminded of that every time the roads get a little slick. People with four-wheel drive and ABS think those features mean they can drive just like they do on dry pavement and they’re the ones you see in the ditches after they discover that ABS con only do so much on ice.

So most of them wisely stay home on days like today. A doctor just came into the Books-a-Million cafe and announced he’s taking the rest of the day off because no patients had shown up at his office by 10 a.m.

The parking lot here is mostly empty and I’m betting the weather will mean no waiting in line for lunch at Olive Garden.

So, on balance, I’m kinda liking the weather today. It reminds me of being a bullet-proof teenage driver in Indiana.