A 40-year-old Hawaii kid in the snow

The following is The Hawaii Independent moku editor Jamie Winpenny’s account of his holiday stay in Denver.

The snow has begun falling here in Denver, where I am enjoying the holidays with 10 of my in-laws. There’s an inch or two on the ground, with a smarmy local weatherman promising up to eight inches by tomorrow. I had planned a round of golf in 40-degree weather with my brothers in law, but the snow precluded that today. It’s just as well.

As I haven’t been in the snow since 2000, I’m finding myself inundated with memories of loading band gear all over the western United States in subzero temperatures seven nights a week during winters on tour. I never developed the snowboarding addiction my bandmates fed so fervently during those years, despite having grown up surfing and skateboarding almost pathologically. I was happy to stay in the hotel, sipping whiskey and watching the snow drift into Cool Whip formations outside the window.

It’s neat to experience it again, the vaguely somber and reverent feeling evoked by gently falling snow. It is not entirely without childish delight that I feel and hear the familiar, muffled crunch of snow under foot. Having grown up in Hawaii, I suppose that the novelty of snow, indeed of any kind of weather that isn’t mostly sunny in the mid-80s, has never really left me. My nephews-in-law marvel at my marvel with snow. They’re 10 and 13. (Nephews in law? Is that right? Whatever.)

Before this trip to Denver, I spent a few days in Hilo, during the recent week-long rain squall that soaked all of Hawaii. We went to Mauna Kea to observe the lunar eclipse, and maybe get into some snow. I wasn’t nearly as delighted by the prospect then as I am now. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because I don’t feel as though snow in Hawaii is “real snow.” Only those who live above the Visitors Center at Mauna Kea or Haleakala have to deal with snow as a fact of daily life. Even then, it’s not for more than a few weeks per year.

Here on the “mainland,” dealing with snow and its incumbent inconveniences dictate how people live their lives, in some cases for much of the year. There are countless strategies, including mud rooms, snow tires, windshield scrapers, anti-freeze. There is a multi-billion dollar warm-weather wear industry that flirts with fashion but ultimately answers to the form-follows-function maxim. If it doesn’t keep you warm, you simply don’t wear it.

Banished outside to smoke cigarettes, I’ve spent a lot of time in the cold in the past few days. I’m able to enjoy it, because I know that when I get home to Honolulu, I’ll miss it. Even though I’m freezing my ass off right now.