Don McCartan

It was late spring, everyone hoping we had seen the last of the cold and ice, when we were hammered by a unseasonable winter storm. We woke up to more than a foot of snow, and the news that school was cancelled. No one was going anywhere due to unplowed roads. Our ten-year-old was thrilled.

At breakfast I reminisced about building snow forts using my Mom's bread pans to make snow "bricks" when I was a kid. We resolved to build an igloo, and headed down to the park. Bigger snowballs have never been rolled, and we stacked them 6 feet high, smoothing them, shaping them, and then hollowing out the interior.

Lots of other kids joined in the construction, and never did a fort have more love and attention invested in it. As Chase recalls, it was the coolest fort, ever.