Ronald C. Roat is program coordinator of the print and online journalism sequences and an associate professor of journalism. He joined the faculty in 1986 after a professional career as a reporter, columnist, and/or editor at six newspapers in Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana, including the Lansing State Journal and the Dayton Daily News. He has written regular opinion page columns for three other newspapers. Professor Roat is the author of three mystery novels, Close Softly the Doors, A Still and Icy Silence, and High Walk, all stories in the Stuart Mallory Mystery series. A Michigan native, he earned his master of arts degree at Oregon State University and his bachelor's degree from Michigan State University. He currently writes a weekly Internet column for The Evansville Courier & Press. Roat is in his 19th year at USI and is the single father of his daughter, Brittany, and is working to complete a book on which is an outgrowth of many of his columns and his unscheduled “rants” he delivers to his students. After that, Roat will finish the next Stuart Mallory novel, Some in Velvet Gowns.

Snow
Winter's silent companion

by Ron Roat

I am snow. I am born in clouds burdened with moisture and fed by warm, humid rising air. Sometimes I am big and thick, and I fall with speed and determination. Other times I am nearly weightless and am buoyed and swirled by brazen winds until I fall with gentleness and forgiveness on all that is below.

I am natural. I contain no harmful substances. I am pure and often the heart of clichés about goodness and decency and honesty. I contain no evil, and yet I contain no particular good. Yes, I am the snow, the substance that once melted feeds everything that thrives. I am merely and simply crystalline water, the basis of life on this Earth and all other planets. I am the complication of the universe.

I am snow, and I am feared almost everywhere. Mighty organizations ready themselves each year in the anticipation of my arrival. I am the target of powerful machines puffing grimy smoke which push me to their sides and throw salt at what they cannot persuade to convenient locations. Civic leaders call press conferences to brag about childish efforts to bully me to the sides of narrow roads.

I close airports in minutes, cities in hours and states in a day or two. I can lay waste to towns, villages and isolated homes in the mountains, and I often do when I have amassed some considerable presence. In less than 50 years I can erect colossal walls of ice commanding lands the size of continents, and I can maintain that domination for thousands of years. I have construction plans for the next 200 yeas, but because I am snow, I shall wait patiently for my moment.

I am snow. I am the beauty of the winter scene. I am the topic of poets, the theme of philosophers and the subject of photographers and painters. I am the calm and splendor blanketing the ruins of summer. Children aged 2 to 100 lie down in me and become artists. I am where the lonely seek understanding. Smile at me as I cap the mountains. I am what lovers need for walking and whispering. I am essential to all things real and magnificent.

Snow. Find it holding pine branches in place. Appreciate its simplicity and its energy as children use it for winter-only thrills. Embrace its lack of cruelty, its wealth of integrity. Know it by its silence, understand it through its simplicity.

I am the snow, and I will be back. I am your companion. Hold me in your hand and see my message.