The Home Front:
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT The Magic of Nature's Ice Storms By William E. Bohn A fortnight ago, we had a great and early snowfall in Delaware. For days we motored about with the tire chains...
...We spoke of the beauty before us, but our language was hollow and ineffectual...
...I passed streams and forests, and now and then a vacant lot, neglected and given over to weeds...
...I thought of men who have loved the wonders of this glorious world, men like Henry David Thoreau, Joseph Wood Krutch, Edwin Way Teale, Dick Neuberger, and this just naturally suggested an out-of-doors tramp...
...During the night hours, the universe had been dressed in a uniform coat of shining glory...
...The trees and shrubs are standing still, self-consciously waiting for the ice to melt...
...The words were grossly inadequate to the task, for in comparison with what we saw, a diamond would be a poor and unimpressive little thing...
...The most ornamental garden was no prettier than the most neglected patch of wasteland...
...I noticed, also, how some of the timid drivers smiled at me as they passed...
...Yet, when we arose, we were naively astonished at the magic which had been wrought...
...There was no difference between them...
...Usually, the manipulators of the whizzing automobile gaze much too fixedly down the road to give any attention to the plodding pedestrians on the side...
...I was sorry I met so few people...
...They seemed especially gay, somehow transformed out of their commonplace existence...
...Down along Boulder Brook I came upon three or four boys who, with shouts of abandoned joy, were coasting down a hill under the trees...
...Was it my imagination which endowed them with such a bouyant bearing...
...The landscape was glowing, as if it were infiltrated with electric fire...
...As I write these words, I am happy to report there has not been one breath of air moving in our part of the world...
...I recall that once during my boyhood, on the farm out in Ohio, we had such an "ice storm," such an extravagant draping of the world in flashing jewels, and the results of the blinding "show" had been tragic...
...Then, the other day, four inches of soft snow and rain fell far into the night...
...The trees were changed into symmetrical compositions of twinkling brilliance...
...For days we motored about with the tire chains clanking under us...
...We were having what is called, inappropriately, an "ice storm...
...The thermometer dropped well below 32, and it would not have taken a very astute forecaster to prophesy what was on Nature's agenda...
...The slaughter was so great and so ruthless that, regardless of our appreciation of the beauty, we united in hoping we should be spared any such visitations in the future...
...A great gale rushed over the land while the ice was thickest and heaviest, and mighty trees were twisted and laid level with the earth...
...It is as if the world of living plants were conscious of their danger and were waiting for it to pass, for in this winter stillness I can hear, deep in the woods, the warble of the first golden-winged woodpecker...
...Every plant, every bush, every blade of grass, every wire and every house was sheeted in roseate, gleaming ice...
...For once a pedestrian could tramp forth boldly...
...There was simply no ugliness anywhere...
...If they had no refined appreciation of the wonderful world about them, they had, at least, a healthy feeling of being alive, of really enjoying Nature...
...I may have been kidding myself, but I had the notion that the day's beauty had somehow humanized these men and women, for usually they did no more than ride back and forth to their routine tasks, staring only at the highway as if that was all there was to the outside world between home and work...
...The gleam of the world would have been augmented if there had been some other person—friend or stranger—to appreciate its glorious beauty...
...What struck me, especially, was an evenness in Nature's decorative scheme...
...They strode over the crusty snow with an air of triumph...
...We stood there on the porch, gazing spell-bound into the woods, and exclaimed: "It looks like millions of diamonds...
...I came upon a couple of hearty milkmen going about their regular work...
...This seemed to me to have significance...
...Then, when the highways were moderately cleared, we had the chains taken off and the traffic moved with smoothness between great ridges of piled-up snow...
...What it really made you think of was the magic of oriental fairy tales...
...Though the universe was encased in crystal, the partly frozen snow furnished secure footing across fields and through the woods...
...It was an ideal day for a promenade...
...The temperature remained steadily below the freezing point and for weeks we had a marvellously white season...
...Winter is all about us now, but this is surely the first sign of Spring...
...There were only a few automobiles abroad, and those we saw were moving very timidly...
...The whole world, down to the smallest and most useless pebble, had been transformed into a shimmering paradise...
Vol. 44 • January 1961 • No. 5
