For most of my life, I have begged for a good snow. The majority of time I have been disappointed. The scenario goes something like this.

I am ten years old and sitting in front of the TV. Though the supper dishes just got put away, it’s already dark outside. Mom is sitting in her chair sewing a button on a shirt. Dad is pushed back in his recliner. Barefoot. I can hear him twitching his toes.

The anchorman on WSB is talking about a fire in downtown Atlanta. Our TV is black and white, so the images on the screen require some imagination in technicolor.

“Hurry up,” I say.

All day long, the talk at school was about snow. Our teacher even got in on the conversation.

“When the temperature is cold enough and the moisture in the air gets just right, we’ll have snow. But if the ground’s too warm, it might not stick.”

This was gut-wrenching to a kid who dreamed of snow. I lived envious of kids in places who just seemed to get snow anytime they wanted it. You go to bed. You get up, and there it is. A blanket of snow. Real snow. No grass blades sticking up through the top.

That’s what I wanted.

“What are you in such a hurry for?” Mama barely looked up from her needle and thread.

“We might get some snow tonight. I wanna see the weather.”

I’m sitting close enough to the screen to cause severe ocular damage. Johnny Beckman comes on. He’s waving that fat black marker of his across the weather board.

Weathermen back then were different than our modern forecasters. For one thing, they were comfortable with the title of “Weatherman.” They did not need to be designated as chief meteorologists to feel good about themselves. There were no storm teams. There was no future-cast radar.

Johnny never hyped up the weather either. In fact, all the news was mostly free of hype. They just gave us the facts and the details as they knew it in brief bullet points. You could draw your own conclusions.

So, Johnny is blazing his pen across the map. The temperatures are close to snow temperatures. His arrows show some moisture building in the upper atmosphere.

I’m thinking, “This could happen.”

After Gunsmoke and a cup of hot chocolate, Mama says that it’s time for me to get to bed.

“We probably won’t have school tomorrow.” I’m pleading with the snow elves.

She knows what’s on my mind. “Don’t get your hopes up. It probably won’t snow at all.”

I make a purposeful turn through the kitchen on the way to my bedroom so I can stop by the back door and turn on the floodlight to see the backyard. Nothing but dirt and brown grass.

I sigh hard. The basketball goal on the front of the smokehouse is the only thing out there that looks white.

My room is quiet. I’m lying in bed under a pile of blankets. It’s pitch black. I can hear the wind outside my window.

“Please, Dear God, let that wind bring us some snow.”

The kids up north in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania have no real appreciation for snow. They don’t have to pray for snow. They don’t have to beg for snow. They don’t have to watch their hopes and dreams dashed to the ground like a broken jar because the temperature got stuck at 34°and refused to go any lower.

Kids up north get all the snow they can handle. They might have to go to school in three feet of snow, but at least they have snow. They have snow sleds. We have cardboard. They have snow bibs and jackets. We have layers.

And snowmen. They can build real snowmen. Big ones that last for days, maybe weeks. We build tiny snowmen that look like they have brown fur because of all the leaves poking out through the skin. They melt by noon and all we’ve got left is a pile of sticks.

Then there’s the snowball fights. Up north, they can scoop up clean snow right off the ground. We have to scrape it off the hood of the car. They can make enough snowballs to win WWII. We make two and it’s over.

The night passes. Mama comes to my bedroom door. “Time to get up.”

I can tell from the sound of her voice that it’s just a regular day. I push my nose against the window of the back door and turn on the flood light again. “Please, God.” But the yard is bare. The temperature is 35°and it’s raining.

To add to my pain and suffering, the radio is on in the kitchen. I’m sitting, forking my grits, slumped from disappointment. The voice on WSB 750 is going over a list of school closings in the counties north of Atlanta.

“Schools in Clayton, Fayette, Henry, and Spalding Counties are on schedule as usual.”

I lived nearly knee deep in snow at one time in my life. Almost 80 inches of annual snowfall. I spent seven winters shoveling snow out from around the door to my house and off my driveway. I understand that snow can get old. I’ve seen the dirty snow that hangs around all winter long. And I came back to Georgia to get away from all that.

But inside this old skin of mine, I’m still that kid who wants it to snow. I still turn on the outdoor floodlights looking for signs of flurries, hoping to see something sticking on the ground.

To snow this far south, all the meteorological magic has to line up just right. If the air is too dry, the snow won’t form. If the temperature is too warm, we just get rain. If the ground ain’t cold enough, it won’t stick.

It snowed a few weeks ago north of here. Just thirty miles above Pine Mountain, those lucky folks got maybe 3 or 4 inches. A blanket fell from there all the way up through the Great Smokies.

Down here, I got leaves.

I gotta tell you. Living on the edge of the snow line is killing me. There’s a second potential wave of snow coming at us right now. But get this! The best chance of snow is south of where I live. Albany could get more snow than me.

It’s been seven years since we had a good snow at my house. I checked the date on my last snow pictures. I’m beginning to think that the snow fairies hate me.

So, I’m watching the forecast like I’m 10-years-old. I’ve got the TV guy. I’ve got the app on my phone. I’m following Dr. Don’s podcast. I’m checking in with the NWS.

They all agree that I MIGHT see some snow tonight. I might get anything from a dusting to three inches. I think I deserve better than a maybe this time around.

I can tell you this much. After dark tonight, I’ll be wearing out a path to the kitchen door to turn on the flood lights every 30 minutes.

Please, God. Let it snow.