CORBIN — My dad’s been wanting to see my new house since I bought it a year and a half ago, and I’m finally ready to show it to him. He had planned to make the trip to Corbin right after Christmas; however, Cincinnati got so much snow Christmas night he didn’t dare make the trip.

My mom, on the other hand, moved back to Indiana that same year and a half ago, and she says she doesn’t remember it ever being this cold up there... ah, the ugly memories the brain lets go of when you get older. My sister, living right beside Mom, says the snow up there only just thawed out this past weekend when they finally got a warm up.

She then asked me how much snow we got, and honestly, I was embarrassed to answer her. After all, we DID get some snow Christmas evening. I even remember driving through the snowfall on my way home that night. At times, the whipping white stuff was even a bit blinding, and I deliberately kept off the main roads for fear of accidents. Turns out, that was a smart move on my part.

I made it home safely, climbed up on the front porch and stood there for a spell basking in the magic of the white flakes falling to the ground.

I couldn’t wait to compare the beauty and volume of the first good winter snowfall with my northern sisters the next day.

When I got up the next morning, first thing I did was run to the window. There and then, I realized there was something seriously wrong with this picture. All the hullabaloo and expectations of the night before had turned out to be a joke. It looked more like Mother Nature had tried to shake a little something out of a clogged salt shaker.

Now, I’m not looking for a foot-deep heavy wet snowfall that could bring down the roof of my new house, especially now that I’m finally beginning to appreciate it. But, there’s nothing like driving down the road and spotting kids in their front yards with gloves, toboggans and scarves falling off as they diligently build their first snowmen of the season.

What I had hoped to see when I pulled back the curtains that first morning after Christmas was all the fresh snow piled high on the trees, glistening on the branch tops, much like the newly opened green leaves of spring. Except, unlike the spring leaves, this winter wonderland would only last a few hours at the most, thus making it extra beautiful, extraordinarily magical.

But, will I go out driving in it before the snowplows have done their work? Absolutely not. I’ve learned my lesson.

I still remember in vivid detail The Arena’s opening night concert with Montgomery Gentry — great concert, by the way. A major snowstorm had zeroed in on Corbin sometime during the concert. My aunt and I deliberately left early to try to beat the crowd down the mountain. After trutching through more than a foot of snow and finally finding my car, it still took us over half an hour to scrape off the snow and ice with the only thing we had on us — credit cards. By the time we finished and the car was completely scraped, headlights, taillights and all, we were absolutely exhausted and couldn’t wait to get into the car and get warmed up.

As luck — and Murphy’s Law — would have it, we had to wait a little bit longer as I realized the door lock was frozen and I couldn’t get my key to work. My aunt, who like me was a frozen popsicle by this time, offered to call my uncle and have him brave the steep road up to The Arena to pick us up. It would surely take him a good hour, but what the heck, we could trutch our way back into the warm Arena foyer and wait for him there. However, sometime during our discussion — as much as you can surely discuss anything during a blizzard — I caught a glimpse of the Starbucks cup through the driver’s side window sitting in the console cup holder between the front seats...

One... I’d never been to a Starbucks – ever.

Two . . . my car didn’t have a console between the front seats – still doesn’t.

Oops.

Long story short, someone else received a really nice surprise that night, and we finally got off that mountain hours later. After driving for what seemed an eternity, I dropped my aunt off and crawled back to my house. Once there, my car only made it half the way up our long driveway before getting buried deep in a snowdrift. That was OK with me. It was already well after midnight, and by that time I was more than happy to get out from behind the wheel and hoof it the rest of the way up the hill to the house.

So, now you understand why I’m content to look out at the beautiful new snowfall and take lots of pretty pictures while I wait for the snowplows to do their thing on the roads.

So, please, Mother Nature, I’m not asking for weeks or even days of white over white stuff, just a little something so that next time my Hoosier sisters call and start talking about their Winter Wonderland, I’ll have something to contribute to the conversation.

Is that too much to ask?

—Footnote to all you English majors. I’m well aware the words “trutch” and “trutching” are not listed in the dictionary. They should be. I really like the way the words sound, and they fit the story perfectly. So there.

Bobbie Poynter is the Community Editor for the Times-Tribune. You can reach her at newsroom@thetimestribune.com