Sky Fall

Today was the first snowfall for the late autumn season and watching the snow fall from the sky, I was happily reminded of my cat, Monkey's, first experience with falling snow.  More on that in a moment.

Previous readers of this nonsensical blog, will be aware that I injured my brain in a fall a few years ago and while most of my faculties returned unhindered, my memory, sadly, has not.  Most of my long-term memories are gone and I struggle daily with my short-term memory.  So when I recall something that was previously lost, I celebrate the moment in some way.  Tonight, I'm writing a blog about my cat's first experience with the white stuff, as well as some of my childhood memories.  So sit back.  I'll try to make it brief.

From the time I was a teeny infant to my mid-to-late teens, I remember going to bed and waking up to a few inches of beautiful puffy wet snow.  As kids, we'd don our winter boots and coats and run outside to play in the white stuff.  It was a more simple time and the first snowfall would always put smiles on our faces.

In my twenties and thirties, I often recalled going to watch a movie at the old Rainbow Cinemas at the Circle Park Mall.  Go into the theater after driving through a downpour only to exit the movie to discover snow covered cars in the parking lot.  The air was eerily quiet considering how close we were to Eighth Street.  All one could hear is the sound of the wind and the crispy sound of snowflakes landing on other snowflakes.  It was almost magical, until you got into your car and reality suddenly flashed back into the present.

In grade school, at Boughton Elementary, we'd arrive in the morning and the city kids (myself and a hand full of other kids, lived on a farm, so we were bussed into the city), were already hard at work stomping out the wagon wheel pattern for a game we'd play.  Essentially, if a child were standing in the middle, they were safe, but if you stepped out of the center onto the tracks that made up the wheels or the spokes, a marauding player tasked with tagging the runners out.  I was never very good at not getting caught, but even more terrible at tagging people out.  It was kind of a silly game, but fun for a time before computers or game consoles. 😄

A few years ago, I drove school bus.  In fact that's what prompted me to pursuit my current vocation as a city transit worker.  Anyway, not to diverge from the subject at hand.  There were some newly landed immigrants who rode my bus.  They were Middle Eastern and in all likelihood, had never laid eyes upon snow, but watching these little children smiling and laughing as they played with the puffy snowflakes as they drifted downward from the sky, was absolute magic.  Words cannot explain how special that moment was.

As I drove away from the school, I spied those kids still laughing with big smiles on their faces as they played in the snow.  They clearly loved it, unlike another little fella who was panicked at the first snow fall.  He was only a few months old, at the time, so it was expected, I suppose, although it never donned on me until it happened.

I was downstairs watching TV when I heard Monkey run from the front of the house to the kitchen in the back of the house.  I overheard a small murmur, before he ran back to the front of the house.  He continued to do this several more times over the course of a few minutes.  His murmurs and meows growing more and more intense and stressed with each pass.  Finally, he ran downstairs to where I was, looking up at me from the floor, I could tell something was wrong.

I followed him upstairs and this was when I discovered that it was snowing.  Again, like in my youth, big puffy snowflakes, stuck together, falling from the Heavens and all the while, my boy, Monkey, was freaking the f*ck out and rightfully so.  To this sweet little creature, the sky was falling.  To this day, I refer to that moment as Armageddon. 😃

Those days of innocence are long behind us, now.  Nowadays, when it snows or rains, Monkey simply looks at me with disgust, blaming me for the weather instead of fate.

Can you believe he was ever this tiny?