Jersey Shore Magazine

J e r s e y s h o r e • F A L L / H O L I D A Y 2 0 1 4 66 HOME PORT Snowfall Memori e s by Frank Finale T he steady fall of flakes mesmerizes me. I am a boy again, staring from a warm bed through a frost-flecked window. Hydrants, bushes, and cars are swaddled in an immaculate white blanket. The once bare trees are now cloaked like alabaster statues. When the snow subsides, I'm finally allowed to go outside. I recognize nothing! Where my friend's yard was, there is a garden of lamb-like snow bushes. Where the street was, there is now a lone lane that a plow has scraped through. My dad begins to shovel a path from our door to the lane. With every shovelful he lifts, smoke puffs from his mouth and clouds his face. Scrape scrape, crunch crunch. Pause… A foot at a time, down to the street. I decide to help him with my small plastic shovel with the red handle. We reach the street where a neighbor has dug out his car and is trying to release it from a snowbank. Without success, his back tires whir, leaving an acrid smell of burning rubber in the crisp air. My dad plods back to the house and brings back a bag of sand. Spreading some under the back tires, he asks, "Where do you have to go?" "Just a few blocks up the road to bring some things to my mother." Dad helps him rock the car back and forth until it's free. "Thanks." We watch the car sashay up the snowy road as dad shouts after it, "Be care- ful!" From the door mom calls to us, "Ralph, come back into the house and bring Frankie to warm up." Even with wool- en mittens, my hands feel cold and wet, and my fingers are red and numb. Dad and I trudge to the house. My pants are heavy and stiff with little burrs of icy snow stuck to them. Mom yells, "Leave your wet clothes near the door." I unsnap my galoshes, wrestle them off, and hurry into the kitchen where a couple of steamy cups of cocoa and fresh baked cookies are on the table. Her cocoa never tasted as rich and chocolaty as it did that day. "Hey mom, did you make this different?" "No, Frankie, it's just the snowy day that makes it taste that way." That afternoon, my friend, Joey, and I build a snow fort and defended it with an arsenal of snowballs against the bigger kids who wanted to knock it down. When they succeeded, we said, "So what, it's just snow." I remember once hearing my grandfather say, "Revenge is a dish best served cold," and he explained the meaning to me when I asked. Little did those big kids realize that Joey and I each took a couple of snowballs to keep in the freezer to exact our revenge. Later, we grab our Flexible Flyers and head for the hills to go belly whopping with the rest of the kids. We had contests to see who could go the farthest with one belly whop. I would take a run- ning start from the top of the hill, flop down on my sled, and try to steer the runners onto the paths the pre- vious sleds made. Sometimes I would win. Sometimes I would fall before I even got to flop. "No do overs!" Joey would cry out. When we grew too cold and tired near dusk, we staggered home dragging our sleds behind us. We laughed and talked about all the fun we had. "See you tomorrow." "Not if I see you first!" Joey replied. Months later during my mother's spring cleaning, I came home from school, went for a snack in the kitchen, and noticed my icy snowball melting in the sink. "Mom what did you do? I was saving that!" "Oh, that dirty ball of ice? I found it in the back of the freezer. I cleaned and put it in the sink." "Aww, mom," I sighed. I popped one of her freshly baked chocolate chip cookies into my mouth, took a gulp of cold milk, and watched my 'revenge' slowly melt down the drain. My desire to get back at the big kids melted right along with it. Years later, as a grown up, I reflect on a black and white photo from the blizzard of 1888 of a lone person resting on a snow shovel between roof-high canyon walls of snow. Sighing, I wish for snowfalls like those from before I was born. Be careful of what you wish for, you just might get Philip Tell continued on page 62 Ocean Grove beach.

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