By Shlok Sharma ’19

At last, Loomis Chaffee has snow!

Winter, for better or for worse, has always been characterized by a few notable things. The colors red and green, for example, which signal the holiday season and the influx of Mariah Carey and Wham! songs that will play on repeat. Warm cookies fresh out of an oven, fireplaces lit to replicate the cookies’ warmth, and penguins are others.

But, out of any other symbol that this author can cobble together, out of any possible list anyone could cobble, snow is the most persistent. The frost it supports, the hills it creates, and the chalky landscapes it leaves in its wake–it defines the season so much so that one wonders if it is even worth writing.

For some reason, it has also been an empty symbol.

I, an unknowing and unwilling participant in a large swath of geopolitical debate, was sure that climate change and global warming had made its mark. Through humanity’s unwillingness to stop its continual use of fuel-powered lawn mowers and Zambonis, its refusal to buy more Elon Musk products, we were finally going to face our consequences and rid the American Northeast of snow. Come December, I watched the grounds around me in anticipation, hoping for some trickle of white, some cold snowball-ready (but obviously not, because of the sensible Loomis Chaffee handbook rules) snow. Even a slight dusting would do.

But alas, a “White Christmas” never came, and I listened to Bing Crosby with the nostalgia that suited a mind much older than mine. I was calling for the end of days, harkening back to the winters of third grade where blizzards were common in November, ranting to whoever would listen.

Winter break came and went, but snowflakes never did. Through the award-movie season (which included, surprisingly, Bohemian Rhapsody) the roads outside movie theaters remained un-iced, and the people I saw in the nearby Panera Bread were sporting shorts and crew necks. In December.

I came back to campus fretting that I would see a year without snow and then, two weeks later, I began hearing whispers of a fall. Whispers turned into rumors which then turned into an all-school announcement that students had to be careful walking outside and that students should think twice about walking into town.

The next day I did both and took a few pictures.