Tag: SNOW

WHY I LOVE WINTER

I often get teased for saying that winter is my favorite season. Sometimes when I tell people that, I get the same look from them as when I tell them I voted for Trump. Like I’m crazy or something and not in my right mind. I am very proud of the fact that winter is my favorite season. I absolutely love the winter season for many reasons.

I spent twelve days in Hawaii in October. The weather in Hawaii stays the same basically year around. How boring is that? While in Hawaii, I often told my wife, that I don’t think I could live in Hawaii because you cannot experience the four seasons. I think that is what makes living in Minnesota exciting, interesting and fun; the vast difference in all the four seasons.

I think the reason I like winter is that I enjoyed it so much as a child. When we lived in New Ulm, I remember the neighborhood kids along with my brothers and sisters playing outside in the snow all the time. We lived across the street from a huge sledding hill. Well it was huge to a child. Now when I drive by that hill it does not seem that big. We spent hours and hours sliding down that hill on toboggans, wooden sleds, and rubber inner tubes.

I don’t know how many winter forts we made in our backyard. My dad would push up a huge pile of snow in our backyard with a front end loader. Then my brothers and sister along with the neighborhood kids would dig tunnels through that huge pile of snow. Some really became big. After it was done, we had our own igloos. If you did that today, it would be considered a little dangerous to have kids crawling in tunnels under a large pile of snow.  

Every winter, you could count on us Raymo kids to make many snowmen in our yard in New Ulm. Some of them were pretty creative. I also enjoyed a really good snow ball fight on the school grounds. Making snow angels, eating snow, shoveling snow, it’s all good to me.

When I was a teenager living in Madison, I could not wait for the skating rink to open. I spent many hours playing hockey with my friends. I remember many kids coming to the rink. Playing hockey with my friends was fun, but skating with my girlfriend was better. Roxie was a good ice skater.

Now as an adult, the first snowfall is still exciting to me; I love it. I appreciate the beauty of winter as I grow older. The white snow on the ground, the bright full moon, the cold. It is all good. If I ever move from Madison, we are moving way north, like Northern Alaska, or I could easily become a Canadian living in the Rockies. When you say that winter is your favorite season, you are instantly put in the weirdo category and I am okay with that.