The quietness of softly falling snow

I love winter. I like spring, summer and fall as well. Each season has its strong points. But winter are different. It stands proud, beautiful and apart. I'm surprised that such a wonderful time of year attracts so much bad press. Recently, columnist Larry Cornies went on an I-hate-winter rant. The piece was titled: No welcome mat for Old Man Winter.

Cornies has a rather depressing view of winter. It's a slushy-faced, drunken monster casting a dark shadow over all and sundry. He admits he didn't always feel this way but he was not too old when he began turning against one of God's fair seasons.

Cornies ends his rant by reprinting a poem by Thomas Hood, a 19th-­century English poet. I wondered if Cornies associates this poem with winter. If he does, he has attached the wrong poem. The poem is a downer, Larry. Allow me to suggest an more upbeat alternative.

When I was in grade school we memorized a poem with a much different tone. If memory serves me right, the poet was Dame Edith Sitwell who once said: "Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home."

The poem I associate with winter is: "Christmas Snow."

 The night before Christmas
’Twas quiet all around;

’Twas quiet on the hills
And quiet on the ground;

’Twas quiet up above, 

And quiet down below;

And the quiet was the quietness
Of softly falling snow.

Whenever it snows, I recall that poem and smile as I look forward to the unique pleasures of winter.

Real life is filled with surprises

Recently my wife had our granddaughters, Eloise, 5, and Fiona, 7, making chocolate chip cookies. The two kids rallied to the task. They made some of the best tasting chocolate chip cookies I have ever had. The girls did not go light on the chocolate chips and I think that helped.

Now, about the hats. The kids didn't have hair nets and so to keep stray hairs out of the batter the two wore their outdoor winter hats. It worked, I guess. There were no hairs in the cookies.

When I look at this picture, I smile. This is a picture of two young kids making cookies. It is not a posed moment. Today if a newspaper is illustrating a story on kids making cookies, they might run a stock image rather than spend the time and money to shoot their own art. The image would work on the page but it would never show a neat moment like this one.

Stock photos reinforce stereotypical thinking and such thinking should be the antithesis of the thinking of a journalist. Sadly, today this is no longer the case.