250 Words on Snowballs

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I’m a Californian now, happily living in a moderate Mediterranean climate, but I was a kid in snowy South Dakota. Because all my memories of snow are those of a child who played in it rather than an adult who had to shovel and drive in it, I like it. In wintertime, I miss it.

We kids were finely attuned to snow’s many manifestations. Fluffy powder you sank into, icy crust you walked on, slushy mush that soaked through your boots. Most important was the difference between snow that packed well and snow that didn’t. 

Fashioning a perfect snowball was both science and art. Edison never tested as many lightbulb filaments as we did snowball layers, sizes, shapes and weights. 

When I was a kid, snowball fights had unwritten but universally understood rules. I don’t know if kids are even allowed to throw snowballs anymore, but in the olden days children were expendable and if one was lost in a skirmish their parents simply had another. 

A slushy snowball stung more than a regular one but was fair play, especially if it hilariously dribbled down someone’s neck. A layer of ice beneath a veneer of snow was underhanded but allowed. A hard shell of gravel was prohibited but hey, if a little gravel sneaks in, what can you do?

Of course, compacting snow around a rock core was the nadir of poor sportsmanship. There are 80-year-olds who still aren’t allowed to throw snowballs due to their lifetime bans for rock-packing.

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