Channeling my mother on these snowy days

When my mother arrived in New Mexico as a bride in 1957, she brought two items that I doubt were in many ranch homes at that time: a pair of ice skates and a set of snow skis.

She was a native of Ohio, a state where snow can endure for months on end.

She had also spent the previous three years in Japan where the extremely favorable (at the time) exchange rate let her hit the slopes almost every weekend.

It is reasonable to say that she welcomed snow in eastern New Mexico with far greater enthusiasm than her crusty rancher husband.

Wintry weather for a rancher means breaking ice on water tanks, making sure the cattle have access to feed, and devoting extra attention to a sick steer or a newborn calf.

My mother loved to recount how puzzled my father was when the first picture-perfect snowflakes started to drift down the winter after they married, and she suggested they saddle up the horses and go for a ride.

For fun.

Because it was “so beautiful.”

He went, of course, because newlyweds will humor each other that way.

If memory serves, she even convinced him to tow her on skis behind a horse a time or two before the honeymoon blush faded and ranch life reality set in.

When my brothers and I were old enough to bundle into those toddler strait-jackets known as snowsuits, our winter-loving mother was always the first one out the door to spearhead the adventures.

On the rare occasions that we had enough days of cold weather to create thick ice on our metal swimming tank, she helped each of us, by turn, lace on her ice skates, using as many extra pairs of socks as needed to make them fit.

If we had several inches of snow, we would break out her ridiculously heavy ski boots, clamp them onto our feet, lock them onto the equally heavy skis, and take turns trying to awkwardly propel ourselves across our flat, flat yard.

We must have had television by the time the 1968 winter Olympics took place in Grenoble, France, because I entertained dreams of being the next Peggy Fleming after she won the gold medal for the United States in ladies' figure skating, and I can picture my older brother leaping through the air while re-enacting a move by the legendary French skiing champion Jean-Claude Killy.

It has been several decades now since I had any desire to participate in sports that involve strapping things on my feet to make icy surfaces even more slippery.

But when the first snow of 2021 came last weekend, I channeled my mother and headed outside at the break of dawn.

For fun.

And because it was, indeed, so beautiful.

Betty Williamson loves winter in small, manageable doses. Reach her at:

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