Snow on the trees

There are superstitions everywhere. There are regional superstitions, superstitions farmers have, cultural superstitions and some that might belong exclusively to a family.

("Superstition" is a section of the Making a Difference workshop I help lead.  We ask the participants, "When is a superstition not a superstition?" And then we have a conversation about the superstitions the participants know about--the Irish workshops always bring up some I've never heard before....The answer to the question we ask is, "when it isn't".... That is, things are 'superstitions' only we we don't believe them. "The world is flat," is a superstitions to us, but look at very early maps and there will be warnings like "There be dragons!" only a few miles off the coast. Europe, until the 15th century, operated out of "the world IS flat" and to suggest otherwise was madness....)

One of the things my father always said, that I just considered a superstition, is 'if the snow stays on the trees through the day after the storm, more snow is on the way'.

I look out my window in the gathering dusk and the huge fir and hemlock trees that are my only view, are weighed down with snow from yesterday. And, it ain't my father but the National Weather Service who is telling me, "it ain't over yet, Jimmy boy!"

So, Virgil Hoyt Bradley, Dad 'o mine, wherever you are, I owe you an apology. The snow stayed on the trees even though it was above freezing and sunny all the live long day. You weren't just making stuff up.

Here's the problem, Dad, now I've got to reexamine all the other things you told me so long ago that I assumed were utter nonsense.

That's going to be a pain....