I missed winter last year.

Scraping snow off my car before work today, neighbor I've never met strolls by and says, "This is just a taste. You think we get 1-2 inches trickling in at a time. We've had 18 in one go, that's common." He must know I'm new to town, though I was tempted to say I grew up with this weather, spent years in snow pants and wet wool eating snow until I got frostbite on my cheeks (yes, now I know about pollution and germs and that one time I might have accidentally bitten into a rabbit turd...), still remember to put bread bags on my feet under my boots for wading through those knee-deep drifts, dream about crouching rabbitlike in dark tunnels under the unbroken crust of snow, know it's about 15 Fahrenheit when the snot starts freezing in my nostrils. My proudest creation was a cave that some high schoolers destroyed.