Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea

It came late, and while I can sympathize with some people who eagerly looked forward to it and were frustrated, if not distressed at its tardiness, I am ready to say that I've had enough if it.

I refer, of course, to winter.

The fact that the heavy snow was late this year was something of a relief to me, although that proverbial sword has a couple of edges. Lack of snow in this part of the world at this time of year carries certain implications, possibly of an environmental nature, which should concern us all and does concern the vast majority of us.

So yes, a complete absence of snow, combined with unseasonably warm weather, was a point of concern to me.

But now we have snow, and lots of it. And it's combined with cold weather, very cold. And I'm sick of it.

Now I somehow get the idea that Nature is not going to be moved to act just because of these words here. I've been trying to get wrong-thinking people to see the errors of their ways for more than 20 years, and think more like me; and the success has been, to say the least, limited. I don't expect to do much better when it comes to influencing the elements.

As you have probably gathered by now, I am not a wintery person. I guess I never have been.

Every since I was a little kid, I hated shoveling snow, and I still do. I tend to wake up at about 6 a.m. and look out the window to see if it snowed during the night. If it did, then I'm soon pulling on clothes (with a large amount of accompanying grumbling) and heading out trying to get it off my driveway before either my wife or I drive out and leave tracks of snow glued to the pavement until we get a mild day (which as of this writing appears to be some weeks off). It's also like that when I get home at night if it's snowed during the day. I park on the street, get the shovels out of the garage and clear it all away, before going in and announcing to Beth that I'm home.

Consequently, I'm usually one of the first in my neighbourhood to get my snow shoveled. I guess that gives me a certain amount of bragging rights that I would rather not claim.

I enjoy going to work in the morning, but I enjoy it a lot more when I can step outside into reasonably comfortable air, not feeling weighted down with winter apparel (which I usually don't bother with unless absolutely necessary) and getting into my car without having to brush snow off it, and getting in with reasonable confidence that it's going to start without any trouble.

And I like to do all of this without freezing my beard.

I realize I'm sounding a bit selfish. I know there are people who live for the winter. They want to ski, or skate or slide down hills. I can sympathize with them, if for no other reason that I used to be one of them.

I tried skiing for a couple of years in high school, and I consider it a major accomplishment that I did it without breaking any bones.

I also did a fair amount of skating as a kid, largely because there was a good outdoor facility nearby and partly because my parents seemed to want me out of the house during weekend afternoons, and a directive to go skating was always a handy way to accomplish that. It had it's benefits, especially since I did play organized hockey in those days. I was a pretty good skater; one of the few fundamentals of the game that I actually mastered. If you want a good laugh, watch me attempt a slap shot.

But that was years ago, and most of the tricks of the trade are no longer within the capabilities of my fortysomething legs.

Ironically, I still skate now and then, usually if and only if no one is watching. Beth and I got in a bit of skating a couple of weeks ago. I even have pictures of Beth going around the rink. The main reasons I don't present them here is she might consider them grounds for divorce.

The thought even occurred to us to tie on the blades Saturday at the event on Dufferin Marsh - Okay, the thought occurred to me. Beth sort of vetoed the idea before we even got there. Our skates were in the trunk of my car (still are). I used the excuse that we had time constraints. It was as good an excuse as any.

Sliding down hills in winter was one of those activities that required little in the way of skill, but was lots of fun too. Although I lived in the west end of Toronto as a kid, I was fortunate enough to have a school equipped with a big hill running down to a large playing field that was bordered by more hills, which just happened to be on the path I took to get to and from class (I doubt they would let kids travel such a route unescorted today). I used to kill a lot of time on that hill, so much time that I would would be late getting home, drawing me more than a couple of parental reprimands, especially when I was tardy for lunch. I was told there was to be no more sliding down the hill, although the reality was it was on my way, so could I be blamed if I took the fun way down the hill as I progressed home? It wasn't my fault if I got to the bottom and realized that I had forgotten my homework, requiring me to go back up the hill; or forgotten to take my leave of certain classmates, requiring me to go back up the hill; or neglected to wish my teachers a pleasant lunch, requiring me to go . . . you get the idea.

One of the reasons why I was expected home in good time in the evening is there was usually snow to be shoveled.

For that matter, there is snow to be shoveled when I get home these days. And I don't have any hills to slide down for fun before the work starts. That's probably not a bad thing. At my age, a couple of fast trips down a hill would probably end up involving hospitalization.