Some things done are difficult to undo.

I learned this during a 1963 snowstorm in Elmhurst Il in the company of my brother Mark, seven years younger than me, and thus not liable in any way for the DO, which couldn’t be undone.

The snowman we embarked on building held promise of being our largest yet in the 5 odd winters we had been constructing them. This was a perfect storm, if packable, roll-able snow is your definition of perfect.

Little surpasses the joy you enjoy when a tiny snowball cooperates by getting bigger and bigger and then gets so big BOTH of you have to roll it and then it gets SO big you have to let it sit wherever it is when it’s TOO big to roll anymore, in this case the dead center of the driveway of our ranch house.

Being the elder I was cognizant of time’s passage and knew Dad would show up after work in a car it was safe to assume he planned to drive into his garage. Being the elder, I also noted our snowman base was embossed with lawn, like an ice cream ball rolled in green coconut. It was the infant sod Dad had put down some weeks back. It was the expensive infant sod Dad had put down some weeks back.

Being elder, I calmly assumed leadership by shouting “Dad is going to kill us! What are we going to do?!”

Mark assessed the trenches of bare earth where a backyard had been, the headless snowman taller than himself that obliterated the driveway, the pathetic grass sprouts dead before their time and says, “It’s okay. We’ll just UNROLL it.”