The thing I do not miss about the far north is snow. If I never see another flake, I can die a happy man. The Admiral misses it. She will show me pictures of winter scenes with the sun reflecting off the snow in a million diamonds, and mounds and mounds of the white stuff rolling over hills, covering trees, and ask me, “Isn’t that beautiful? Don’t you miss it?”

My feet and hands began to ache from visions of cold, and I answer, “No, and no, it pains me to even look at pictures.”

“How can you not miss such beauty?” She asks.

“Easy,” I answer, “you did not have to shovel it.” She is quick to remind me that she shoveled, but like she does the majority of the dishes, I did the majority of the shoveling, and I had enough in twenty years to last another twenty.

When we drug anchor in the south, my heart was warmed to know I would never shovel, or blow snow again. The material has changed, but the task has followed me. Now, instead of snow, I rake, shovel, and blow leaves. They are the southern snow.

For those of you who have no trees in your yard and long for them in the hot summers to shade your house, you might think you are willing to trade places with me who has over a hundred of the leaf shedding monsters to deal with. I love trees, but can’t science come up with a non-shedding oak tree, like we have non-shedding pets?

Last year, I hired young men, along with the Princesses, to rake leaves, put them in the back of the pickup truck, haul them to the street for city pick up. In six hours, they hauled out twelve loads. Each load was about three cubic yards, and they did not get but about a third of them. That is a lot of leaves from a lot of raking and shoveling.

I blow the drives and walks every couple of weeks. By then, the place begins to look abandoned. Although this may seem like an innocuous task taking little physical effort, it is the mental strain from which I suffer.

I am convinced that I have PTSrD. That is Post Traumatic Snow-removal Disorder. When I realize that you can’t tell the driveway from the yard, I begin to come up with reasons to avoid the task of leaf removal. The act of walking the drive with any kind of device called a “blower” brings flash-backs of freezing toes in the pre-dawn dark with snow falling so hard that as soon as you finish a section, the one previously done needs doing again, and so it goes all day on weekends, or after work on weekdays. Just like leaves, it seems to never end.

I have escaped the snow, but not the task of removal. The material has changed, is less pretty, and I have exchanged a shovel for a rake, but the work is so similar I wonder if I have escaped anything. I stop to remove my jacket because I am sweating and realize, that yeah, it has changed. I am not freezing, and just worked up a sweat. I smile, and shiver as snow pictures flash in my head, and I remember why I love the south. Sweat gets in your eyes.

David Wilson Atwood is a local writer whose human-interest columns offer a unique perspective. He may be contacted, at www.starchasers.us or david@starchasers.us.