Boo winter!

I’m not sure about where you live, but here in Richmond, Virginia since Sunday, January 18, the pending winter storm has been pounding incessantly through all forms of media.

The relentless, repeating blabber is as bad as back to school and political ads.

Even my wife, my commander supreme, from the jabbering of a local television weather forecaster has asked me where the shutoff valve is for our water line.

Grocery and hardware stores are elated.

Milk, eggs, bread, snow shovels, snow melt, and batteries are gone. Gleeful managers admire their empty shelves as they scramble to restock before the monster storm arrives.

The state’s highway department is already treating road surfaces with a spray concoction of chemicals designed to melt snow, sleet, and freezing rain. The road surfaces are left streaked with wobbly white lines of the drying chemicals.

Power companies are monitoring the developing storm with deep concern as forecasts shift from snow to sleet to the most dreaded—freezing rain.

Parents with school age children are trying to figure out how they will survive if this demon storm shuts down school systems for multiple days.

And then we have the robins.

Long thought of as a sign of the return of spring, I’ve seen robins darting around our neighborhood since early January. Sorry, but there is no spring in this predicted winter storm. I hope the robins survive.

Speaking of survival, I wonder how the homeless will survive? The predicted low temperature for Monday night, January 26 is 3 degrees. That doesn’t include wind chill.

If we are the greatest country in the world, why are we unable to permanently solve this longstanding problem?

My love for winter precipitation is gone. I’m too old. That love for a snowflake has been passed on to our four grandchildren.

I hope we all survive the ferocity of this predicted winter storm.

As mighty as man pretends to be in out smarting the weather gods, I’m not sure we will ever out think a riled up mother nature.

In the post-storm days, there will be lines at car washes. Auto body shops will be giving non-stop estimates for repairs, and the noise of chainsaws and wood chippers will cascade in neighborhoods where trees have taken a tumble.

Those responsible for clearing parking lots will build mountains of snow that are piled high in out of the way corners of the lot. Like school children, these snow clearers quietly pray for another winter storm to help their seasonal bank accounts.

In the back parking lot of the Village Shopping Center, I’ve been keeping my eye on a shrinking mountain of snow. Tucked away in the back corner of the lot, this mound is leftover from our two December 2025 snowstorms.

The pure white color of the snow is gone. Its icy surface is now a dark charcoal gray with a layer of fallen leaves on top. I wonder what that graying, the darkening of the snow really tells us about ourselves and how we treat our world.

This time last year, we were in Marathon Key, Florida. If we had opted to return this January, we would have missed this winter madness.

And despite my curmudgeon whine against winter weather, I do find beauty in this season.

I love how the still water in the creek bed frames the reflection of the sky and the surrounding vegetation.

When driving on a country road, I admire how winter opens up the landscape. My eyes can peer deeply into roadside farms and stands of bare trees.

The stark bareness of those trees, lets me see the sculpting of their limbs contrast against an early morning sky.

I appreciate the tenacity of a youngster shooting hoops on a nippy winter afternoon.

On the campus of the University of Richmond, in the Westhampton Lake, brazen ducks go for an early morning swim in water too frigid for me.

At the Trinity UMC Preschool, I’m captured by the wintry artwork of the students.

And late in the afternoon, there is nothing like the colors found in a sunset as the sun closes out another winter day.

Perhaps in your boo to the harshness of winter, you too can find a bit of its beauty.

And who knows, maybe that will help you endure this latest round of winter weather.