Something akin to ecstasy has overtaken North Georgia tonight--it is snowing! Church services have been canceled. School tomorrow is iffy. People are stocking up on milk, bread, and toilet paper. And why? It is snowing. Children's faces are plastered to the windows; parents have turned on the patio floodlights. Why? Because it is snowing.
Snow doesn't occur very often hereabouts. People don't own snow tires, snow blowers, snow ploughs, snow shovels, or snow shoes. Television newscasters spend as much time on "the great storm" as their weather-forecasting colleagues, thereby doubling its effect. The total accumulation may be only an inch or two, but no matter. When it snows in North Georgia, everything comes to a stop and we marvel anew at the goodness and severity of God. Goodness, because it has snowed. Severity, because it has snowed.
Lyricist Sammy Cahn and composer Jule Styne said it best, way back in 1945:
"The weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go,
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!"
Admittedly, "frightful" is a relative term. Northerners may snicker and talk about how silly we are, how this is nothing, how bad it got back in nineteen-whatever in Chicago or Detroit or wherever they previously called home, but Southerners don't care. Why? It is snowing!
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