AmSnow.com is now SnoWest.com
September 7, 2013 North Branch, Minn. – Here lays Nancy, trusted friend, ally, and rugged individualist. Nancy was born of fire and steel; plastic and rubber; primer and paint in Valcourt, Quebec, Canada in the summer of ’71. Nurtured by the sturdy hands of men with funny accents, flowing hair and awesome mustaches. Only days old, she made a perilous international journey shuddered in a wooden crate on the back of a semi flatbed through shield and woods; wind and rain; hill and dale to the territory of Minnesota where she would eventually make her home among the trees and lakes.
Upon finding egress from her wooden prison, she sat on a cold concrete floor awaiting her fate. One snowy winter day a grizzled man with “Bud” embroidered on his shirt, who smoked Old Gold cigarettes and smelled of Old Spice cologne finalized Nancy’s adoption. She made yet another voyage in the back of a ’69 Chevy pickup to the farm yard that would remain her home for the next 42 years.
With the nourishment of fossil fuels in her ample bosom, Nancy traversed the great wild prairie. Many a frozen river she did ford, many a field she crossed, many a ditch she became stuck in. Through all this adventure, Nancy narrowly missed trees of every size and shape, along with a few road signs, fence posts and occasional buildings.
Nancy was of a hearty and stubborn soul, not to be manhandled or controlled. With a mind of her own, she could be cold blooded and merciless, making those who benefited from her tenure earn the privilege of her company each and every time. She was not sexy or a seductress. She was not fast and reckless like some of her unscrupulous peers. Nancy would break the back of the faint of heart, and she would not shy away from a tangle with a culvert from time to time.
All the while, Nancy kept what was rightfully hers. She held, white knuckled, onto that which surrounded her heart: a simple plastic cowl with simulated wood grain affixed with one cheap plastic latch. This single move spared the fragile life of many a knit wool scarf and saved herself from vomiting her contents all over the crotches of many a man, causing sever itching and possible rash. Many other women recklessly gave up their cowls in search of ether and spark plugs. Others simply found theirs gone with the wind, left to languish in a long forgotten ditch. And what of Nancy’s heart? A heart forged of Austrian heritage. 399 cubic centimeters of tempered, hardworking adrenaline.
The heart of a lion.
Alas, Nancy could only hold the attention of the men in her life so long. Like sirens of infidelity, more beautiful and powerful women came and went. All the while, Nancy remained, banished to a hardscrabble life in a dark shed that smelled of stale gas, lawn fertilizer and mouse pee.
In the end, she loved the snow. She loved the rolling waves of frozen mass; the drifts of sugary powder; the crisp mornings and frigid nights. She wished she could run the landscape like she once did years before, but her heart was scored, her points pitted and her fluids tarnished.
Nancy is survived by brothers Nordic and Skandic, and a sister, Elan. She was preceded in death by a sister, Ski-Boose, who fell off a trailer near Winona in 1974.
So, put on your yellow half helmets and goggles. Wax your mustaches and dawn your one-piece suits. Crack the pop-top on your 20:1 and raise your glasses to Nancy, the one-of-a-kind matriarch of a bygone generation.
Salute!