Georgia snow

You don't often see the words "Georgia" and "snow" together.

Yesterday we had some snow flurries in our area. Nothing stuck to the ground. There were some icy patches this morning, but not enough to call off school in our county.

The county where my husband works did have more snow. There was a light dusting of snow on the ground when my husband got to work this morning. They called off school in that county and a few others too.

We had just gotten groceries a few days ago, so I had plenty of food in the house when our flurries hit. My husband did run out on Sunday afternoon to pick up a Sunday paper and he said everybody was buying up all the bread and milk in our local Publix.

It made me remember way back in March of 1993 when my husband and I were living in Athens, West Virginia. Hubby was working full time at the local movie theater. I was in my senior year of college and working at the campus candy store (MY FAVORITE JOB EVER!).

It was Friday night (as I remember) and my husband and I were in Lewisburg visiting my sister. We were leaving to go back home. We knew snow was expected, but were clueless about how much. We headed towards Alderson to take the "back way" to Athens, but had to stop because those country roads were solid sheets of ice.

We took the long way instead, going on I-64 from Lewisburg headed to Athens. We weren't on that road long before we realized we were in trouble. My husband could hardly see. The interstate was eerily empty. We pulled off an exit to call my parents' house. Those were the days without cell phones! My parents were at my sister's in Lewisburg, but my brother was home and I told him to expect us in a little bit. We knew there was no way we could make it back to Athens that night.

We had a few harrowing moments, with the car doing a perfect circle on the snowy road, but we finally made it to Sophia and to my parents' house. My mom and dad had quite the drive back to Sophia too when they returned the next day! My dad got stuck on the interstate. My mom accepted a ride from somebody to call for a tow truck. They let her know the interstate was closed. Mom said "You can't close it, my husband's out there!"

Somebody rescued my dad and he and my mom made it back to the house. We were pounded with snow and stuck in that house for several days. My dad walked through tons of snow to get bread, milk, and eggs from the closest convenience store, which wasn't close at all or very convenient for that matter!

We survived the Storm of the Century! That very experience may be one of the reasons I panic slightly when the cupboards are bare, even on the sunniest of days. These days I like to have the following in abundance around here: bread, milk, eggs, butter, tea bags, and TOILET PAPER. I keep all the staples like flour, oil, salt, and yeast in abundance too. And sugar. Don't forget the sugar!

I think with those items we could live quite happily if something unexpectedly kept us from making it to the store.

After a few days, though, I would start missing meat. I might have to send the guys out into the woods behind our house to shoot a squirrel or two. It's been a long time since I've had squirrel gravy.

There's two more words you don't expect to see together. "Squirrel" and "gravy."

I think for the next grocery shopping trip, we'll stock up on chicken and ground beef for the freezer.

Just in case.