Southerners show superior snowman skills

I've gotta hand it to the citizens of Blytheville and the surrounding area: You people are good at making snowmen.

I offer the perspective of someone who grew up in eastern Iowa, where winters produce far more opportunities for snowman-making than what occurs around here.

You would think that Northerners would be the ones with the wicked snowman skills. After all, they've had much more practice, right?

But not so. In my estimation, it is the Southerners who are the snowman-building champions. And last weekend's blizzard proved it true again.

Perhaps it's because major snowfalls are so rare in these parts, that citizens can't help but go all out when it comes to building snowmen. Around here, a big snow is a memory-building experience. The opportunity to build quality snowmen may only come around once every couple of years.

Up North, where I grew up, the ground was often covered with snow from Thanksgiving to Easter. In other words, having snow just wasn't a big deal. Sure, we went sledding, and had snowball fights from time to time. But we hardly ever even built snowmen. And when we did, they usually consisted of no more than a couple of haphazard snowballs and a few sticks.

They were nothing like the snowmen that were built around here over the weekend. The snowmen I saw — and the pictures I received — revealed folks who went crazy with their snowmen, adding all varieties of costumes and even food-coloring to perfectly shaped balls of snow. The creativity was boundless, from the Hannah Montana-themed snowdiva made by Lexi Snyder of Gosnell, to the six-ball colossus on First Street, to the brilliant snow-caterpillar created by Ronda Ball.

My hat goes off to these snow artists. You've got us Yankees beat.

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But Northerners still are the champions when it comes to snow removal.

Anyone who traveled — if you can call it that — the highways in the Armorel area Sunday, knows what I mean.

Everywhere you turned, cars and trucks were getting stuck in the snow; and time after time, neighbors were called upon to pull people out (Thanks, Chucky!)

Along Highway 137, en route to Nucor Steel Arkansas, someone had cleared a path for traffic, but in the process, created giant mounds of snow boulders along the side of the road, and in the middle of the highway, between the lanes. I'm not sure if this makeshift plow job made conditions better or worse. An eyewitness told me it appeared that a non-government vehicle was doing the plowing, for whatever that's worth.

Some folks have pointed their finger at the county for not doing a good enough job plowing the roadways. Others have said that finger might more appropriately be pointed at the state, which apparently is in charge of state highways, like 137, 312 and 150.

Well, whoever is responsible, the fact remains that the highways were a mess.

Of course, it's hard to get too upset about it. This part of the country so rarely gets as much snow as we got Saturday night, and it's no wonder the powers that be apparently lacked the equipment or know-how necessary when it came to getting rid of it.

Most times around here, mother nature and a continuous traffic flow pretty much combine to get the roads clear within a day or so, and that's pretty much what happened this time too. It just took a little longer, that's all. And with this week's warming trend, all roads should be back to normal soon, save for a bit of mud.