ONE MORE TIME, SPRINGTIME

Find the Snow Baby in this Picture, Spring 2014
nan turpin photograph

Here’s how you know this was the last snow of the winter:  when it started after dark we didn’t dare hope it would stick.  And mostly it did not, except for an icy crust along the downtown parking lots.  But in Grant Park we had one last good dazzle.  For proof that this snow was most wished for, the paths were cleared but few walked on them.  We were in the snow and as early as one arrived the snow was already tracked by shoes, paws and the tiny hop-tracks of squirrels and pigeons.

This was a distinctive snow, made up of tiny beads, looking more manufactured, like a space age laundry detergent, than something crystalline  formed somewhere above our dreams and sifted over us as we slept.  This snow looked extruded, shipped in and sprayed over the park through a long hose hooked up to a tanker truck on Michigan Avenue.

Is this what the snow they ship to Brazil for wealthy children to frolic in looks like?  No matter, last night we even got a tiny Snow Toddler to greet train commuters at the morning rush hour.  It’s how we say Good Morning in a town not so tough if it gets just one more snow.

IT’S SNOWING (SNOW)MEN

Ta-da Snowman nan turpin photograph

…part 4 of 4 (probably)

 

More than 9 inches of snow in less than a day gave us a nice thick snow pelt in Chicago and in the little round park in my neighborhood those 9 inches gave us another Significant Snowman.  The day after the snow footprints, all size humans and dogs led in the direction of the little park where, as we have come to expect these snowy days, a very large, girthy snowman was waiting for us.  It was different from the other two, the cocky snowguy, and then pouncy big cat. 

 

This new snowman lacked the artistic confidence of the other two.  It was more a traditional snowman made up of stacked balls of snow.  But this was different snow, wet and heavy and that classic pile might’ve tested the limits of the medium.  Primary Source wanted to think it was by the same artist, who found snow not really to his or her liking but left us a credible snowman even so.  And this snowman was so good natured and cordial, branch arms extended in the traditional ta-da gesture, who could complain?  It was a lovely full-sized snowman for all of us.  And, the Chicago bonus, over his head you could see the last few dozen stories of Sears/Willis Tower. 

 

This may be our last snowman in the neighborhood.  The snow has been beautiful, gently falling a delight to walk in, and so we walked humans and beasts, down to the little round park, to discover a new snowman that came in the night.

 

Some sources:

 

*Sears/Willis Tower:  Both the Sears fans’ website and the official Willis (2009) Tower website agree, this engineering miracle, still the tallest building in America, rises 110 stories out of the ground. 

 

http://www.searstower.org/

 

or, new name, new website:

 

http://www.willistower.com/

 

The Sears Tower fan site is full of tallest building fun, including offers of “fan gear”.  Primary Source is charmed by the thought of a fan club for a building.

 

As for our latest Snowman’s Ta-da! Pose, just type ta-da in your browser and see the frolic that ensues.

 

Try the paper edition of the March 7 Chicago Tribune for a three-snowman photo series that moved around local neighborhoods but overlooked ours.

 

And this link to the Tribune’s on-line Tribu publication.  It’s a photo survey of snowmen everywhere:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/tribu/sns-viral-snowman-pg,0,1193832.photogallery

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE, part 3, SNOW TONIGHT! SNOWMAN TOMORROW?

WAITING FOR MORE SNOW         nan turpin photograph

The weatherman predicts snow over night and tomorrow, inches and oodles of it, enough snow, it may be, for our neighborhood snow artist to make us another delight.  If this anonymous artist cannot resist fresh snow, if, perhaps this artist is at a kitchen table now making preliminary sketches for tonight’s snow creature…Primary Source will cover the opening and post a picture as soon as there’s something to depict.  A number of us in this friendly neighborhood are hoping for a nice fall of snow, enough to tickle the many funny bones of our snow genius….to be continued…

More snowman sources:

 

Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” radio show has occasional winter visits with a philosophical snowman.  As springtime temperatures threaten, the snowman is taking a tragic turn.  Last Saturday the snowman was back.   Check listings but in Chicago it’s on National Public Radio, Saturday’s 5-7pm.  Here’s the link:

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/

If you want an inkling of past, present and future grandeur of radio, Mr. Keillor’s program is the very best introduction.  Be careful, it’s habit forming. 

 

Curious about how many books, for children and adults, with pictures or all words, are currently selling?  Scroll through the pages of Amazon books.  No doubt about it, there appears to be an enduring fascination with the ephemeral power of snow people and creatures.

 

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE, MEET THE SNOW, MAN

1) It all started the day before, a sunny day just enough below zero for the big snow we’d gotten the day before that to hold, dry and powdery, a pleasure to plunge bare fingers into.  Someone took advantage and built the cockiest snowman to snow up in this town in a long time.  He was about my height, hefty like a Mid-western snowman should be, elbow cocked, hand on hip, daring all to surprise him in the style “now tell me something I don’t know.” He had a magnificent head, big chiseled features and heroic profile of the heavyweight who retired in time to keep his wits.  The park’s deserted, just me, when I see him. I walk out into the snow, stand close and look directly into the carved glitter of his eyes in the afternoon sun- eyes frozen hard in the direction of a good time.  That tiny French bulldog charges over the snow, flinging his little barrel chest ahead of him but stops dead when he spots something new and big out there, bolts toward it, barks briefly then clears out, where’s the exit? There it is! I reach deep down in my coat pocket and the camera’s not there. 

2) Next day’s sunny with big hot degrees above freezing and snowman’s melting for sure.  By the time I get back to him with a camera he’s surrounded by the children who are only visible when warm.  I don’t like the way they’re moving around him, in a way to suggest bad intentions.  Up close I see scrape marks all over the torso; the nose is gone and not from melting.

3) Next day and by the look of total snowman debris, only a vaguely head-shaped snow clot hinted a snowman had existed briefly.  That trace says nothing of his magnificence or of the bright talent of the sculptor was willing to make this magic in the ephemera of snow surrounded by children and dogs and the weatherman’s promise of rising temperatures. 

Coda) But this is the big city and somewhere on the North Side of town a woman had finished the wings for her 7’ snow angel, the Chicago tribune photographer was invited to record it and she stood proudly next to it on page 5 of this morning’s breakfast newspaper (Chicago Tribune, Feb. 26).  She built it in her own back yard with a fence and her mortgage payments to keep the vandals at bay.   

 

It’s the end of winter in Chicago and we know it.  They told us the early weeks of this season that we were experiencing a “snow drought.”  Some of us had never heard the term before.  A lot of people here took it as a good thing.  Not “enough” snow?  Hurt us!  Then, into February, every day we ran to the window and the snow had not come we knew we missed snow.  Then the snow fell.  The splendor of our snowmen was proof that we expect the snow and when it’s late we finally do miss it.  This is good knowledge to have.

…next, Snowman Episode 2, Big Cat Pouncing