Yesterday’s big storm – the one that caused me to close the studio early – turned out to be a big non-event… at least for us. We were well north of the most severe sections of the weather hazards. But it never hurts to be cautious.  Wednesday will be a normal day of operation for us again.

It did make me reflect on some of the storms that I have lived through.  In 2004, I was living in Orlando when four hurricanes hit Florida (almost like it was targeting the state) in the space of six weeks.  We had barely cleaned up after one when another one began following in its wake.

In 1983, I was living and working in Reston Virginia during the media-named Megalopolitan Storm which dumped 16 inches of snow onto the DC area and brought the city and its suburbs to a screeching halt. I remember walking a mile to work through snowdrifts as the streets had not yet been plowed to find I was only one of four people to make it in. The company employed 125.

I can still remember the time when a big storm was not a pain but rather a cause for delight. When I was about nine or ten and a huge snowfall occurred, schools closed down; snowplows pushed mounds of snow up against the curbs and left them there… just waiting for a youngster like me to climb up and down them. And since all the kids were out of school together, snowball fights, building snow forts, sledding, making snow angels and snow men… there was always something to do and always someone to do it with.

Eventually, that sense of play subsides. I actually moved to Florida in order to escape the winter and its snow. It just didn’t seem as much fun as a grown up. 

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio of Mount Dora specialize in the preservation of family memories. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit http://www.homevideostudio.com/mtd.