The recipe for a snowman

I have often told the story of the time that I climbed out onto the roof of the stockade to build snowmen. Each measured about six inches high and had no face, but when you have little experience with snowmen you can make yourself see what you want to. The same essentially goes for snow. Today, I woke up like a Christmas movie, looking out the door to see a fluffy white blanket over everything. It crunched over my feet as I walked, and I found Ruel shoveling it off the sidewalks. I even have the day off. Today would be the day that I built a true snowman.

I do recall another time I tried to build one; at sixth grade camp at Camp Fox. It had snowed some in the night, then melted in the morning, then refroze in the afternoon. We (coming from a school seven miles from the beach) kicked it until it cracked, pried the light brown lumps off the ground and stacked them up. It was a snowman a stonemason would be proud of, but probably not one that anyone other than a cubist artist or a child from sunny San Diego could really appreciate.

Truly, my expectations for a snowman are a bit... different from other people's. Most of what I know about them comes from books, cartoons and of course, Calvin and Hobbs (the end is near!). As I began construction, I found myself thinking of Calvin's snowmen, and of course the ones in Charlie Brown and other such adventures. "Why is it that there are never any footprints around them?" I wondered. "Why is there always still snow around them, with the children picking it all up?" As it turns out, building the snowman packs the snow down around it, leaving a thin but hard layer of white all around. Thus, no prints, but still snow.

The construction of the snowman was a lot harder than it ever was for Charlie Brown. They always just rolled a snowball around like Katamari Damacy until it was the right size, then did it twice more and stacked them. I don't know how you make a snowball roll, but I didn't even bother to try. I just built a pile of snow, packed it down, piled more snow on it, packed it down, watched the whole thing crack apart, and repeated endlessly. Eventually I had a small mound, which when I scooped out from under it resembled a large ball.

I actually tried for a moment to make another large ball to stack on top of it. It always smooshed in my hands, so I gave up. Instead, I packed a small snowball and set it on top of the large one. After a few failed experiments at packing the snow on the sides of it, I ended up gently brushing it on, like icing a cake. It still fell apart about a thousand times, but eventually I had a lopsided second ball.

Oddly, the third ball went no faster than the second. What I didn't realize I was missing was the element of time. The snowman was melting ever so slightly as I built it, and thus turning from snow to ice. If I had simply waited a little between handfuls... Hindsight fails to take emotion into account, and at the time I felt like a giddy eight year old. Not terribly conducive to thought, I find.

Eventually, I built the third ball, then filled in the second one, which suddenly seemed to narrow for me. On to the next order of business: A corn cob pipe, a button nose and two eyes made out of coal. There must have been some magic in that old silk hat we found... I have none of these things, of course. What I did have was a dresser full of change. Two quarters became eyes (hopefully not waiting for the ferryman) and about eight cents worth of pennies made him a mouth. Contrary to the description of Frosty, I had always thought snowmen needed a carrot for a nose, not a button. It didn't matter, I had neither. I did have a steak knife I had borrowed from the dining hall to cut up a pie I made. I didn't even hesitate to stab it into my little snowman's face. How heartless of me. Still, the snowman had a nose. Now all I needed was a little magic and a hat. Those I had: right now, my poor battered cowboy hat is sitting on a two and a half foot tall pile of snow just above a handful of change and a steak knife with a little bit of pumpkin on it. Hey, can you think of a more magical hat?