BEST OF WNY: A-Z SNOW Sure, you can blame Johnny Carson’s 1977 monologues (or the decades of sensationalist coverage in the national media ever since) for Buffalo’s bad rep as a blizzard town if you want to. But me, I moved here of my own free will precisely because of the snow. A native of Louisiana, the only kind I ever saw before my twenty-first birthday melted before it hit the ground. How I longed to plop down in a field of sparkling powder and create the imprint of an angel, or to build my own snowman, or simply to figure out what Der Bingle was going on about in "White Christmas." I learned all those things and more: the joys of sledding, the thrill of 180-degree turns you didn’t exactly intend your car to make, the inspirational sense of community Buffalonians create when it comes to neighbors in need. I now understand the difference between a snow blower and a mere thrower (in a nutshell, the former is lots more money and lots less work than the latter). And I recognize that, while Western New Yorkers may not have quite as many words for the white stuff as the Eskimo do, there are still sharp distinctions to be drawn when it comes to a flurry, a shower, a squall, and the dreaded Lake Effect. In short, call me Frosty the Snowfan. Even after spending twenty years dealing with the stuff—marveling at it through the living room window, fearing it through a car windshield, shoveling it off the sidewalk, brushing it off my pants, tromping through it on Christmas Eve, discovering weird stuff buried in it come springtime, spotting late-season mountains of it in Wegmans’ parking lots, and everything else that comes with living here—I retain my childhood wonderment. There are times when my grownup self dreams of moving to Florida, California, or Hawaii, but that just proves I’m a local by now. —Ron Ehmke SUBSCRIBE NOW Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top