Happy to be a Southern gal, y'all

            I'm tired of cold weather.

            I'm tired of icy roads.

            I'm tired of wearing a jacket.

            I want Southern weather to return.

            My family grew up in the North, about 60 miles southeast of Buffalo,  N.Y. I'll sound like some old goat rocking on the front porch when I say I remember walking to school in the snow.

            Uphill.

            Both ways.

            We lived in an older house, common in Olean, N.Y., and we used to get dressed standing over the floor heater. My mom would lay our scarves, mittens, snow boots, hats and jackets over the heavy metal grate. Our clothes would be warm when we put them on, and that was a treat because that old house was drafty and cold.

            Once outside, what I remember most is walking down the street through a tunnel carved out of snow.

            There was an eerie hush walking in that snow tunnel, and I thought the world had turned silent except for the crunching of my boots on the fresh snow.

            I remember watching my dad shovel a path from the back door to the driveway, the puffs of white smoke coming out of his mouth reminding me of a locomotive.

            There were afternoons making snow angels and snowmen and chasing each other with snowballs.

            Before this childhood scene turns into something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, there's another side to those delicate snowflakes and rooftops covered in a blanket of glistening white.

            When the snow melts, backyards turn into a brown wasteland of muddy snow and ice patches surrounded by islands of dead grass.

            Northern swing sets rust a lot earlier than their cousins in the South because they're covered with snow nine months out of the year. Our swing sets fade, but our young-uns are on the teeter-totter in December.

            And January.

            And February.

            In the cold, there's no getting in the car, starting it right up and driving off. When there's two feet of snow outside, chains have to go on the tires and then drivers scrape ice and snow off the windshields before they free all four tires from impacted snow.

            Ear muffs provide little protection from Jack Frost, and all one can dream about on those days is laying in a hammock under the warm sun, a pitcher of lemonade close by.

            For my father, who was born and reared in the hot humid swamps around Lake Charles, La., 10 years of scraping snow was enough. He moved all of us to Louisiana, and we came to look at winter in a totally different light.

            Winters didn't always involve sub-freezing temperatures and busted water pipes. Southern winters meant keeping shorts and sandals close by because it's not unusual for 70-degree days to show up in February and March.

            Southern winters meant there might be a few days with temperatures in the 20s, but those were few and far between.

             Because we're not accustomed to driving on icy roads, we call school off when the roads are frozen and stay home and drink hot chocolate. In true Scarlett O'Hara tradition, we then tell ourselves we'll think about making up those snow days tomorrow.

            So when it gets here, I'm going to embrace the hot weather.

            I'm going to take pleasure in driving on roads that shimmer in the summer heat.

            I'm going to enjoy wearing shorts and sandals 10 months out of the year.

            And when the bluebonnets bloom, I shall raise a glass of iced tea and a slice of pecan pie to the warm weather gods.

            And thank the heavens I'm a Southern girl.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.