A good snow every seven years or so can be good for Hilton Head’s soul | Opinion

“People down below want snowballs.”

That’s how my Granny would respond to her stunned grandchildren when they pelted her with whiney wishes.

Well, we people down below the fall line in the South Carolina Lowcountry got plenty of snowballs last week.

And it’s not so bad.

Granted, we don’t really know how to act in the snow “down here.”

Typically, the closest we come to snow is to gasp to one another in the dog days of August: “Well, at least you don’t have to shovel humidity.”

And even though Hilton Head Island has long been considered an occupied territory of Ohio, it turns out it’s a good thing you don’t have to shovel humidity because, well, we don’t have any shovels.

We shovel snow with Swiffer mops.

We slide down bridges in kayaks.

My snow boots were my golf shoes with the newest spikes.

I scraped ice and snow from windshields with spatulas. And then I covered plants with bed sheets, guaranteed to lower the temperature beneath them by one full degree.

Where my Granny lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, snow was so much a part of life that she kept track of it on her kitchen calendar. She believed that for every fog in August, there would be a snow that winter.

And there was plenty of fog and plenty of snow that added great delights to my childhood: snow angels, snow ice cream, and real sleds with waxed-down runners. And snow men, and snow ball fights, and the calm silence that descends over a moonlit yard with each drifting snowflake.

Our little minds were dazzled with the sheer wonder of the world when someone reported that no two snowflakes are alike.

But we grew up to hear a harsher view of snow.

Even in our subtropical land of humidity, we hear the stories.

A barber once told me he went outside to shovel snow in Detroit, threw down the shovel, went inside and booked a one-way flight to Hilton Head and never returned.

Our snow last week was a real beaut. Inches and inches thick, and it stuck around.

It was enough to spur hope that snow could cure some Lowcountry ills. Maybe the house-chewing squirrels would head south if they couldn’t get to their buried acorns.

But, alas, all I got was a leaking skylight.

Our last big snow was in 2018, and the most significant one prior to that came at Christmas in 1989. Even with that limited experience, I can say that I’d readily trade snow for our own weather staples: Hurricanes and flooding.

Snow storms don’t cause as much stress as hurricanes. Or as much property damage.

Shoveling isn’t as tricky as sawing downed trees. And it’s much cheaper.

You can’t shovel rising water either, but you’ve got to do something with it – like get out of the way.

And snow brings good cheer.

My neighbor Jim shared some of his award-winning Brunswick stew on a cold night, warming heart and soul.

And for six straight nights churches sent volunteers to a warming center so anyone living outside or without heat could have a free place to sleep and get a warm meal.

Hilton Head’s emergency cold-weather shelter is located at Christ Lutheran Church, in a hall named for former members Charlotte and George Heinrichs. She founded the island’s private social-services agency called Deep Well because it arranged for deep wells and indoor plumbing to eradicate problems associated with poverty on Hilton Head more than 50 years ago.

Besides food, volunteers brought coats and sweaters and scarves to the shelter, which on Hilton Head had about six people sleeping overnight with the blanket of snow and ice outside. And one of the island’s soup kitchens made sure everyone who needed one had a sleeping bag.

A lot of people moved here specifically to get away from snow, and I don’t blame them. They pass the IQ test. But every few years, it’s OK to want a good snowball.