You call this winter?

“April is the cruellest month.” So begins T.S. Eliot’s famous poem, “The Wasteland.” He goes on to say, “Winter kept us warm, covering/Earth in forgetful snow, feeding/A little life with dried tubers.” In 2025, winter is doing everything except keep us warm with temperatures hovering well below zero.
Eons ago, when I was a lad, my father always corralled me to help if he were doing something around the house. Jobs in which I assisted included removing and hanging wallpaper, prepping walls and painting, replacing electric outlets, taking out the ashes from the coal-fired furnace, and once, making and pouring cement for a backyard patio.
But of all my roles, my favourite involved the ashes. Those ashes were carefully saved in a bucket to spread on snow or ice so the car could get from the garage to the street. Seeing such usefulness, I came to see cinders as the solution to any problem. “Put ashes on it,” I would say whether it made sense or not.
My least favourite role was shovelling the snow. In Guelph, where I grew up, the snow was always falling, then got piled high, only to see more fall again. Photos in a family album show me almost hidden behind mounded snow. About the only person who came to the front door, using my carefully cleared path, was Harry the mailman. I hardly ever received mail, except for an annual card from my grandfather containing a $2 bill. But my birthday was in June when the green grass grew all around and there was nary a flake of snow.
Across the street in St. George’s park there was a rink but it was not a safe place for a lad like me. The rink was occupied with older boys who skated as speedily as if they played for the New York Rangers. Nor was I allowed to go into the wooden shack with its pot-bellied stove filled with burning wood that heated the place. No, my mother believed bad things happened inside, unnamed bad things, that made me want to go inside even more.
One amazing winter weekend, it rained, then the water on the ground froze. Streets and sidewalks were covered with ice. Everyone skated everywhere as if we lived beside the dikes of Holland. Oh, that was the best day ever.
Today when I see it’s -10 outside with a daylong snowfall predicted, I fret not, neither do I worry. Nothing could ever top any winter’s day of my youth.