My oldest son says, “I hope it’s going to snow”  when the forecast calls for a possibility of frozen precipitation.

I imagine skidding off the mountain, trying to stop for one of the funky “side of the hill” mailboxes that give me fits when the weather is dry.

Life is only about our perceptions.

My son sees a vacation from school…snowmen and sledding and snowball fights and everything else that makes snow so fun.

I imagine getting rear ended by some punk in a heavily financed monster truck who realizes too late that four-wheel drive doesn’t mean you can stop when the road is slick.

So it’s all perspective.

We didn’t have any big snows last year.

It was the first year I had the 4-wheel drive Cherokee.

I did get to use the four-wheel in some of the bad mud we had instead of snow.

The thing about it all is that I really love snow.  Maybe it’s the Norwegian in me…but I really respond well to snow.

It’s just that this whole thing about rain, or sleet or snow…and the mailman has to go…is a real drag.  They will send us out in the craziest blizzard so that we can stick mail in boxes that the customer can’t even get to.

It’s a strange feeling to deliver mail to a box with no tracks coming or going for a week at a time.

I imagine the decision makers with a hot cup of cocoa and a fresh doughnut, sitting in a warm office, saying, “Darn right, they better get out there…mail has got to go.”

If I don’t slide off into the abyss…driving in the snow is one of the most peaceful, beautiful things I do at work.  When I’m out by myself in a whiteout I can imagine that I’m the “Omega Man”…last man on earth, doing something so important that my safety doesn’t even get considered.

It could be the winning Publishers Clearing House entry that I’m delivering, after all.