It is cold here...

It was 38 degrees while I drive into work in Apopka this morning... The little snow flake icon came up on my console display.

I love it when that happens... I wish I could take my little car up to NY one winter.

Does anyone remember when you were a kid, well maybe it is when you are a kid in NY... and you would visit your relatives, usually at holiday time...

Dad would always go out and start the car to get it warm inside, clean the windshield off if you were lucky enough to have gotten snow. Even the Uncle you were visiting would go out to help, even though he didn't have to go anywhere at all. It was just what you did. All while the Mom's and kids would be inside, getting ready to go... pulling all your stuff together... then all at once the Dad's and Uncles would come in with red cheeks, coat collars lifted up around their necks. Out of breath, holding their hands together to warm them up, whether they had gloves on or not... Usually with big smiles on their faces.

Then.... eventually... everyone would be herded out to the cars, the steam floating up from the tailpipes... and jump in the car, and before long the windows would be steamed up.

The ride home on 495/LI Expressway was alway a smooth ride, and quiet because of the snow, it muffled the sound of the tireds on the road, and the occasional car that would pass by. The snow that was falling would be illuminated by the headlights.

That is a memory that I will hold on to, fondly hold on to for the rest of my life.

I find as I get older, I hold those memories close, and smile when ever they cross my mind. Like this morning while I was driving to work, and that little snow flake popped up on my dashboard.

I am not sure if those thoughts are so important to me because I don't have that as an adult. I guess I always pictured myself growing up, and replacing my Mom in the front seat, and my kids being in the back seat. It didn't exactly work out that way. I moved away, got married later in life, didn't have those children to put in the back seat.

Now I have other events in my life that I look forward to every year. And they aren't planned. Just like that trip home on the LIE wasn't totally planned. (Yes, what I mean by that is, the days events were planned, but the circumstances that stand out so vividly, the snow falling, my Dad and the Uncles coming in the house smiling, with red cheeks. Those are still with me. They were not necessarily planned to be memorable... I don't think. It just happened.)

You know what bothers me though... who will carry those fond memories on like I have carried those trips home on the LIE.