(Forgive me, WordPress, for I have sinned. It has been over a year since I posted last.)
“I was on the UCONN website today,” my husband said, “and the cover photo was the Wilbur Cross Library in the snow. What a flood of memories that brought back. I could picture you making snow angels.”
My husband and I met at the University of Connecticut forty-five years ago. Though many buildings have been added to the campus and a “downtown” was finally built in the tiny hamlet of Storrs just a couple of years ago, not much has really changed. UCONN is still in an isolated part of the state, in a valley that fills with snow starting in late October.
I remember spring semester my freshman year. (They need to rename that semester because spring doesn’t arrive until a week before school lets out.) I waded knee deep in snow, the hairs in my nose freezing with each breath, to get to an eight-o’clock chemistry class on the other side of campus, next to the cow barns. Pure agony!
But separated by decades and many miles, I, too, look back with nostalgia on those white winters. The quiet. The peace that blanketed the campus with each falling flake. Walking hand-in-hand with my sweetie across the frozen landscape. The whiteness reflected the innocence of our youth.
Living in Virginia Beach now, most of the whiteness we see is the sand on the shore. But once in awhile, the weatherman teases us with the hope of a snowfall. Not the deep, penetrating ones of those long-ago years, but a small one, enough to remind us of a time when a cup of hot chocolate from the machine in the basement of my boyfriend’s dorm was the best tasting thing on earth.
Coming East 
Nice to see you in blogland again, Susan! Wish I could ship you our white winter… over two feet with the blizzard and about another half foot or more coming down now… not very romantic 😦
My Boston kids sent me pictures! I wouldn’t mind seeing some here.
You should have a lot of fodder for posts since you’ve had a YEAR to work on them. 🙂
I thought of so many during this past year, but since I never wrote them down, I can’t remember what they were.
I have been thinking about you, Susan, even when I was traveling in Spain. So wonderful to have you back! 🙂
Good to be back, Amy. And good to see you in my comments once again.
I have thought of you often. So good to see your familiar face, read your words and recognize our friend originally from CN! I too, have sinned. My last post was December 21 and I too, do need to get back, but the start of a new term, a wonderful holiday and a bout with pneumonia that landed me in the hospital on Jan 2 have just taken it out of me.
I remember U Conn. My younger sister graduated from Mount Holyoke in South Hadley. We made it over to Amherst to taste the best ice cream ever! I will never forget the butter cream texture it left on the roof of my mouth! Do you remember the place I’m speaking of?
So wonderful to hear from you.
So sorry to hear about your hospital stay, Georgette! Glad you are on the mend. No, I don’t think I know the ice cream place you are talking about. UCONN has its own dairy bar, supplied with ice cream made from milk from their own cows. It is and always has been fabulous! It will be fun getting reacquainted with all my old blogging friends…I mean former blogging friends.
Sorry to hear you vacationed at the hospital, Georgette. Hope you are back on your feet and feeling much better.
Welcome back Susan. I to have been absent for much of the past year but have plans to put that right in 2015. And I agree. I don’t find the new format user friendly at all so resort to using the old, true ad trusted one.
Funny that we’re returning around the same time, Judith. I don’t know what prompted me, but now that I stuck my toe back in, guess I’d better wade deeper. Looking forward to getting reacquainted with you.
Welcome back dear word friend! You have been so missed!! I am happy to know you are alive and well. Beautiful post, I don’t have memories from UConn, but it brought back memories of walking across campus at Penn State University Park for weeks in sub-zero temperatures. Oh how I remember those frozen nose hairs! Now I get them walking my dogs in Maine. Keep writing dear Susan you obviously have had many disappointed fans awaiting your return.
I love hearing from old friends! Thanks, Carol.
So wonderful to read your words again. Have missed you and thought of you often. DAF
Hey, DAF! Warms my heart to have been in your thoughts. I’ve missed you, too.
I am looking forward to reading more of your words.
Haha, DAF. I think I’ve run out of them already. Thinking is such hard work.
I am right there with you! My posts are really sporadic, so I totally understand. Maybe we can challenge each other?
You’re on, DAF. What’s the challenge? Twice a week?
sounds good to me! Start next week? Boy, I have missed you!
Deal!
I will look forward to your posts!
Good to see you posting again, Susan!
Thanks, Shofar. Hadn’t decided to keep it up, but it seems I’ve been missed.
I remember it snowing while taking a final at UCONN one “spring” semester. Great to read you again. See you in a couple of weeks.
I remember that final, too!
I remember the CT snow from childhood. And ice storms too. When young, none of it bothered me– now, I have to worry about falling on ice, shoveling, cleaning off the car, etc. Almost ready to trade the NE in winter.
Where would you go?
You’re back! I wondered several times if I had just lost you out there in blogging space somewhere or if you were okay. So it’s great to ‘see’ you again. If you’re missing that winter ambiance, I have enough here in our neck of the woods to share with you. Shall I send you some? 😉
Haha! No, keep it for yourself, Mama. I wouldn’t want to deprive you of it.
Welcome back. You were missed!
Always a good thing.
Glad I could be a part of your “homecoming”! Sounds like a lot of folks were missing you!
I had no idea! Makes me feel like I’d better keep this up for awhile.
Glad you’re back! As another UConn graduate – I am filled with happy memories of that wonderful time in my life. My favorite memories are going back in early September… walking around all the old familiar buildings and feeling intelligence and learning in the air.
Even though George and I both went to graduate schools, he at Univeristy of Hartford and me at Incarnate Word in San Antonio, UCONN will always hold the best memories and is the university we are most attached to. Great basketball, too!
Susan I so miss you and “your sweetie” here in San Antonio. Your way with words is so soothing and full of imagery.
So great to see your name in the comments list! Your room is still waiting for you two to visit us at the Beach.
I was thinking of you just the other week, wondering if I’d missed something. Time and distance do wonders for the memory. 😉
Good to be thought of, IE. Yes, memory is a wonderful thing. Wish I had more of it.
Me too! 😉
YAY!! Welcome back! I’ve wondered how you are!
Fat and sassy, Dianna. But maybe this small step will make me get back into blogging. Looking forward to reading your posts again.
I’ve missed you!
Beautiful as always Susan. I was determined to be the first to welcome you back. I’m thinking a while on what might be a suitable penance. I tink at least a monthly update:) Let’s see how many comments there are. I feel a few coming on…. welcome back dear friend
Gosh, you make me grin from ear to ear, Alan!
I knew you would get a lot of comments…. I told you that you were missed didn’t I?:)
You make me smile, Alan.
What a beautiful post to mark your return! Welcome back!!!!
Thanks, SHBG. Having a hard time learning the new format, though. Nothing on WordPress looks the same.
You can use the old one by clicking in the right places… at least for a while. I’m hanging on…
Now I just have to find the right places to click on.
When you click on the fat pencil on the top right to add a post… look at the bottom right of the screen. It says “You’re using the new editor” – and below that it says.. “Switch to class mode.” Click there! Us old people don’t give up easily!
Thanks!
terrible isn’t it??? you can find the old posting format through the dashboard, though! Open your dashboard, click on posts. Next to the word “posts” (at the top of your list) is a box “add new.” Click on that and it should open into the more familiar (and i think better!) page!
Thanks a bunch!