Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
Last week I woke up early because it was forecasted to snow overnight. It wasn’t even sunrise yet but there was an awesome illumination in the sky awaiting another beautiful Oklahoma sunrise. I opened my Facebook and discovered that my wife had not only beat me out of bed but had already posted some stunning pictures using the pre-dawn sky and the streetlights to illuminate a winter wonderland that covered our property with a huge blanket of snow. I hadn’t even noticed she wasn’t in bed when I got out. She had posted it 15 minutes prior to me discovering it. The pictures were beautiful and I had to throw on some warm clothes so I could go outside to get some pictures of my own.
I took a bunch more and posted most of them on Facebook right away. I took a great picture of our house a couple of years back, but this snow and lighting were way more spectacular. I like to get these pictures before the streets get driven on and slushed up. I waited until the sun came up and took a few more pictures. I was still in awe when I went out again after people had started their day and gone to work. I saw my neighbor Darrell out shoveling snow off his driveway and I grabbed a quick picture of him. I asked him if he was going out and he said no, he just enjoyed shoveling the snow.
Now, I love this snow, but I draw the line there. One of the things I like about the snow is that being retired, I don’t have to go out in it unless I want to. I have complained publicly that the Oklahoma snow I had experienced until this one, has not produced enough to make a snowman, and I wanted to do that. This layer was plentiful enough to build a snowman so I had to jump on it. I should have prepared a little better and at least put on some decent gloves. I knew better but was impatient. I froze up my hands and the pain of frozen fingers won out over my desire to build a decent snowman. It’s not like I have never built a snowman before; I just hadn’t built one in my own yard before. I decided to finish it up quickly and put a stick sideways in his head for a mouth, put my hat on it, took a picture, and went inside to warm up. Who did I need to impress—nobody.
I spent the next few days looking at Facebook comments on my pictures. There were many very nice ones but my mind kept going back to the one I took of Darrell shoveling snow. I took a closer look and was impressed with the composition of this image. It had some close snow that was out of focus slightly, Darrell was perfectly focused, and the slush in the street in the background looked wonderful winding through the snow-covered bare trees, houses, and mailboxes. After cropping it slightly, I chose it to represent this story about the beauty of a snow day in my new home of Sapulpa Oklahoma. I saw some whining about the snow on Facebook but most of it was just fun. I saw a lot of snowman pictures, but I wasn’t about to submit mine as anything other than a pathetic attempt at clearing an item off an old man’s bucket list. I am not one to whine about the snow because I love it.
But I couldn’t help being drawn into the wildfires that are ravaging the state that I called home for
almost 70 years. TV and the internet have been all over that tragedy. I have many friends and family in that state but thankfully most are in Northern California. So far, I don’t know of any that have lost homes to this monster fire, but it’s not over yet. And Northern California is no longer safe from wildfires either as I saw plenty of it when I lived in NorCal. It was one of the big reasons I was so drawn to move to Oklahoma. It’s not like Oklahoma is completely safe from acts of God, but I do feel a little safer with the advance warnings we get for the tornados. I keep in mind that these are acts of God and that God can take me out wherever I call home. Wildfires weren’t the only reason I wanted to leave California, but they were certainly at the top of the list.
I pray for all my friends and family who still call California home. It’s a big, beautiful state and we both miss some of the beautiful places to vacation. I had over 60 years to explore it and have many wonderful memories of beautiful scenery, spectacular food, and amazing people that I still call friends. But now I call Oklahoma home and I look forward to exploring the beauty of a different place that is also full of great people.
