Old Snow

Back in 1983, I think, we had a lot of snow in San Antonio. We were living at 410 Goodrich which is close to the Woodlawn lake. Ok, I don't know if that was the actual name of the lake but that is what everyone called it. It was the Josephine Tobin Park. We woke up one morning and the ground was covered in snow. We did what we shouldn't have and drove to the Albertson's to buy more film for my camera. On the way to the store we went by the lake and took pictures there. Anyone who has lived there will recognize the lighthouse tower in back. Anyways, we learned that just about everyone in San Antonio went out and bought film that day and took pictures. It took about a month to get my photos developed because of the wait. You could walk into the Albertson's and there were boxes and boxes of developed photographs.
When we went home, Maiko wanted to go out and build a snowman. I was feeling artistic that day, so I told him we would build a snow chicken. I found one of his stuffed animals, which was a chicken. Don't ask why he had a stuffed chicken as a toy, but it served as our model. It turned out pretty good. There are others in San Antonio with pictures of our chicken because throughout the day people would drive by, stop, take a picture and then drive away.
Seein how well the snow chicken came out, we decided to build a snow dolphin in my parents front yard. The dolphin came out kind of short and fat. It still looked good. By the time we finished the dolphin it had gotten dark. Maiko posed behind it. Our houses, which stood side by side, ended up with a snow chicken and a snow dolphin. It was Maiko's first time to build anything out of snow and his hands froze a few times while working on them. I don't know if Maiko remembers being out there with us building those snow animals, but It was because his heart, the heart of a child, kept that house warm thought out all those years we spent in San Antonio that creativity came alive on that cold cold day.
The other members of our snow critter crew where Amador "Chicho" Cardenas and my wife, Elfie. Maiko took the picture of us after I had taken his picture with the snow dolphin. It has never snowed as much again in San Antonio or here in Waco. When it does, Maiko will bring his girls over and we will build something bigger and better out of the white fluffy stuff called snow.