*

The asterisk, *, is the season’s most in-demand and in-use grammatical marking, be it on a printed page, in an e-mail or on a website posting.

When we’re talking about organizing a neighborhood or school fund-raiser, getting the crew together for sledding or skiing in (even more) snow-covered climes or just sharing an evening with friends in the comfort of one another’s homes, you have one eye fixed on the sky and are always mindful that pesky * which stands for weather permitting is Banquo’s Ghost for all occasions.

 In much the same way as car companies intone ‘your mileage may vary’ as they hawk their latest automotive triumph, almost everything we do in this part of the country from now through April (say some cynics) will include the mantra/disclaimer, “weather permitting.”

I understand where I have chosen to live and am more than familiar with the notion that in these parts we have all four seasons, sometimes on the same day (or so it seems) and that when I look out a window, I’m staring at pine not palm trees.

Folks dress up like Eskimos, as that seasonal chestnut suggests, not so much because we dislike the cold but more because we’re made of sterner stuff and strive to protect ourselves from the sharper edges of the winter season.

Even grinches like me who admit snow isn’t our favorite vegetable do smile, even if it’s only briefly, when/if the first flakes of snow arrive, as they did this year, before Christmas. When they’re still here at Easter….

I long ago traded my sled for a snow-blower and shovel but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember when our children pulled their sleds behind them on a short hike to the hill at the Buckingham School, often covered by so many other sledding enthusiasts you’d have thought the Olympic Bobsled trials were in progress.

Every so often, and it took a lot of organization as those with children at home know, we’d launch an outing that took kids and sleds to the Norwich Golf Course. I have no idea what par is at the fourth hole, but grown-ups among us found vantage points to keep an eye on one another’s children as they raced downhill as quickly as the golf course was covered in white stuff.

Children and those who retain their childlike wonder as adults, I submit, can see the endless possibilities in every snowflake while the rest of us just regard ‘the weather’ as another obstacle on the course of the holiday steeplechase.

I’m not sure when this time of year went from crisp air, tinged with a hint of snow, touched by magic to a checklist of chores that get ticked off as the days darken earlier while we’re making our lists and checking them twice. Always, of course, with the understanding the best laid plans of mice and men, reindeer and Jolly Old Elves, or Three Kings following a Star are always provisional, improvised and changed by that asterisk, *. Weather permitting.
 -bill kenny