Move Over, Vancouver! Make Way for the Memphis Winter Olympics!

            We Memphians see snow about as often as we see Halley’s Comet.  But when we do get a little snow here in River City, we make the most of it.

The late great Judge Joe Henry once said of a minister, “He’s such a great preacher, he could make a watermelon split seem like a coronation!”  Similarly, we Memphians can make just a dusting of snow seem like a blizzard straight out of Dr. Zhivago.

            In fact, we Memphians can make a big deal out of snow even before it falls from the sky, and sometimes even when it doesn’t.  The fun begins when Dave Brown or Todd Demers or some other local version of Al Roker appears on our television screens and breathlessly announces, “There is a chance that we might have a half inch of snow tonight!”

            Immediately following this announcement, every citizen in Memphis immediately races to the nearest grocery store and buys every carton of milk and every loaf of bread they can find.  I have never understood why a TV weatherman simply saying the words “possibility of snow” immediately causes a Pavlovian response of Memphians to buy milk and bread.

            I truly believe it’s part of a conspiracy between local TV stations and Schnuck’s.  But what I can’t figure out is why the conspiracy works.  Do Memphians really believe that someday our city will be covered by an avalanche of snow, and the only survivors will be those who munch bread and wash it down with cow juice?  I mean let’s get real, people.  Milk and bread are two quickly perishable items.  It would make more sense to stock up on beer and beef jerky.

            We Memphians get ready for snow not only by stocking up on bread and milk.  We proceed to close our schools, businesses, and government offices simply on the forecast of snow.  We’re taking no chances here, folks.  The City schools may reopen in a day or two, but the county schools will remain closed until the spring thaw.

            And then, on those rare occasions when the TV weather people actually get it right and we do get an inch of snow, we Memphians go absolutely berserk.  We declare a City-wide snow day, and we celebrate by building snow people in our front yard even though we often have to scrape up all the snow from our yard and our neighbor’s yards as well to come up with enough snow to build a teeny, tiny little baby snow person.

            True story.  When I was a little boy, a “blizzard” hit Memphis (a whopping two inch snow fall, as I recall).  My mom and I built a snowman, and then so help me, we put him in our refrigerator so he wouldn’t melt.  That’s right.  We put Frosty in the refrigerator as if he were Walt Disney or Ted Williams.  I don’t recall ever taking him out.  As far as I know, Frosty may still be living in an Amana icebox in a Section 7 rental home in Frayser.

            On our rare snow days, we Memphians do more than build snow people.  We go skiing and bobsledding.  This is a truly remarkable accomplishment given that the highest peak in Memphis, Mt. Moriah, has an elevation of three feet.  But we Memphians find a way to slalom and bobsled even on terrain that resembles an icy pancake.

            For example, when the ice and snow hit last week, my daughter and I immediately headed to the Levitt Shell in Overton Park.

            Over the years the “Shell” has hosted some incredible events.  During the 1930’s and 1940’s, it was the home of the “MOAT,” the Memphis Open Air Theater.  Memphians spent summer nights at the “MOAT” enjoying opera, concerts by the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and musicals.

            On a hot July night in 1954, a young man named Elvis Presley appeared on the stage of the Shell, sang “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” and the rest was history.

            And then last week, on one of those rare snow days here in River City, the Shell was the site of what can best be described as the “Memphis Winter Olympics.”  There were hundreds, if not thousands, of Memphians gathered at the Shell to sled and ski down the incline toward the Shell stage.

            Among the non-athletes competing in the Memphis Winter Olympics were me, my daughter, and my two beagles, Atticus and Scout.  We competed in trash can top bobsledding, the Luge (an event which occurred whenever someone simply fell down and slid all the way to the Shell stage), ice dancing, the downhill giant slalom, dogsledding (which basically just consisted of Atticus and Scout chasing my daughter and me behind our trash can top sled), and curling.  This last event actually did not occur at the Shell.  It occurred on my couch in front of the fireplace in my den when I got back home and thawed out.

            Tonight the XXI Winter Olympic Games begin in Vancouver.  I am sure they will be very exciting, but I believe they will pale in comparison to the recent Memphis Winter Olympics held during our snow day last week.  First, believe it or not, we have had more snow in Memphis this month than they’ve had in Vancouver.  On Monday, we had four inches of snow.  In Vancouver, they had no snow on Monday, and according to published news report, the base of natural snow at Whistler Mountain, the site of the Olympic skiing events, was (are you ready for this?) two inches.  You read that right, Jean Claude-Killy breath!  The base for the Memphis Winter Olympics was twice the size of the base for the Vancouver Olympics!

            The poor folks in Vancouver have been hauling snow in for their Olympics.  They are probably storing it in refrigerators in Vancouver, just like Mom and I put Frosty in our icebox in Frayser in 1959.

            The Vancouver Winter Olympics will feature athletes from around the World.  But I promise you they won’t have nearly as much fun as non-athletes from neighborhoods around the City of Memphis had at the Levitt Shell a few days ago.

            And besides, the two stars of the Memphis Winter Olympics, my gold medal-winning beagles, Atticus and Scout, will not be competing in Vancouver.  They are going to be curling . . . with me on my couch as we watch Vancouver desperately try to replicate the success of the Memphis Winter Games.

            And now if you will excuse me, I’ve got to head to the grocery store.  Dave Brown said there is two percent chance of a wintry mix tonight, and I’m all out of bread and milk.