This could be a really dumb thing to bring up here right now.

I just hope it's not a jinx. Please don't let it be a jinx.

It's not that I have any thing against snow, exactly. Snow is fine in its place - like, for example, Killington or Steamboat Springs or Tahoe. Or Duluth. Duluth is a whole different thing. it's pretty weird they don't have much snow in Duluth yet, at least that I can see on the webcam. Less snow than here even. (I don't want to mention where I am in case the snow gods are reading this. NSA is bad enough.) Which is usually not the case.

One evening at dinner, back near the dawn of history (before the Internet, even) the subject of snow came up. Specifically, the subject of shoveling it. Even more specifically, the subject of my kids' shoveling it (so it might have been me who brought this subject up - I don't remember exactly but it's possible). And my kids said, in unison - which was generally how they managed to say things like this - "I bet your Dad didn't make you shovel snow when you were our age."

Aha, I thought to myself. Gotcha. This time, for sure.

So the next day I wrote to the editor of the Duluth Tribune and said look, you've gotta help me here. This may be the only chance I ever get to win a point with my kids. This might be it, right here. So how about finding a couple of good snow pictures for me so I can show them all the snow I shoveled when I was a kid myself.

And he did. A whole fat envelope of pictures. Wonderful, fantastic pictures. Snow drifts second-story deep (the biggest one I remember shoveling through was about seven feet and I thought that was a big deal but these were spectacular). National Guard tanks in the streets helping to plow. Great fantastic mountains of snow piled up at street corners (we used to dig in them and make "igloos" - it's a wonder any of us survived). People schlepping around on snowshoes and skiis.

I don't remember the kids were much impressed. But I sure was. I don't know if I still have the pictures - maybe they're buried under some stuff in the back room. If I ever find them I'll scan one or two so you can see.

So now look. It's snowing here. Not very much, but I can take a hint. So I'm going to stop thinking about snow and think about summer instead.

Ask any real Duluthian what they do up there in the summer and he'll say, "Well, if it comes on Sunday we play baseball."

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