![\"colin-sargent-final-xs\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Colin-Sargent-final-xs-300x261.jpg\")
Snow and I have always had a stormy relationship. As a Portland native, I\u2019m familiar with the dark goat-paths we all slip and slide over when the snowplows pile the vile stuff too high. Walking home one January, legendary Portland millionaire J.B. Brown died after slipping on an icy patch of sidewalk, no doubt trimmed with lovely snow.<\/span><\/p>\nBy April, snow and I are so over. I find myself looking at snow\/weight calculators on the internet just so I can brag about how much snow I\u2019ve shoveled. Because by then I\u2019m tired of saying, \u201cCold enough for you?\u201d Besides, I grew up shoveling driveways. <\/span><\/p>\n But once again, absence has made the heart grow fonder. I just caught myself oddly humming \u201cWhite Christmas.\u201d Surprise: Bing Crosby\u2019s \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d is still the best-selling single of all time, according to Wikipedia and Guinness (both the beer and the book)\u2013in spite of the preciousness. In spite of how the two words in the two-word title invite reflection. Words do matter. <\/span>Over 100 million copies of Crosby\u2019s cover have sold. <\/span><\/p>\n To qualify for such a Christmas, I say snow must be falling or sticking by the end of the 25th. Melbourne, Australia, tried to sneak on the list in 2011 because of a wicked, bright, and lustrous hailstorm. Sorry, mates.<\/span> Who else is in the running? According to the National Climatic Data Center, Albuquerque has a three-percent likelihood of a white Christmas this year. Portland, Oregon, has a two-percent chance on December 25, Miami one-percent. Ditto for Los Angeles. Vancouver, with its palm trees on the Pacific, checks in at 10 percent, Toronto 46 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n If you think I take this too personally, I do. Decades ago, my wife Nancy made me promise that her first holiday in Maine would be a snowy Christmas Eve. I reluctantly agreed. What was the big deal? I already knew snow wasn\u2019t all it was cracked up to be. <\/span><\/p>\n But for all my cynicism, I couldn\u2019t change the sparkle in her eyes. I never have. \u201cJust that first snow,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know why I love it. It puts us all in a movie, just for a second.\u201d I grew wary of her appreciation for it. Nancy\u2019s sense of snow was simply superior to mine. For her, it was somehow\u2026musical.<\/span><\/p>\n I should have known. Snow is what you bring to it. A roaring fire. Families snuggling by the window to catch sight of the first flakes. Sharing the season\u2019s first cup of cocoa with someone you love. And here we go again. My snow memories aren\u2019t all bad. Actually, my profit from a winter\u2019s shoveling of my neighbor\u2019s driveway allowed me to go to Pine Tree Shopping Center and plunk down the cold cash for a Realistic<\/em>, professional-grade, battery-operated tape-recorder for taping The Monkees and my older sister\u2019s phone conversations. The scene I wish I had in a snow globe\u2013my son proudly building his first snowman on the sugary side yard of a fisherman\u2019s shack, our first home on Underwood Road in Falmouth, our collie dancing around him. And just like that, I\u2019m dreaming. <\/span><\/p>\n
![\"Colin](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Colin-Signature-300x142.jpg\")
<\/p>\n