1993. That was the last time I remember us having significant snowfall. The power was out. The ground was covered. Schools were closed. And an 11-year-old boy and his 7-year-old brother banded together to fling snowballs at their 50-something uncle who refused to grow up. It was March in Alabama and we were building a snowman. That was fun.

Now, 17 years later, the snowfall is not nearly as fun. That 11-year-old boy is a 28-year-old whose work and weekend plans are being ripped to shreds by the white devil that falls from the sky.

It’s funny how things change over the course of a couple of decades. When I was a kid, snow was the best thing in the world to me. I wanted a white Christmas. I wanted a white January. I wanted a white February. I would have been excited about snow at any point. It cancelled school. It made the ground look all pretty. It was awesome.

Now, it is a nuisance. Friday’s AISA state tournament basketball games I was supposed to cover in Montgomery got moved to Monday. Linden’s sub-regional game that was scheduled for Friday night got moved to Saturday at 5 p.m.

That means that my plans to head home Friday evening have been shifted to driving home Saturday night. That also means that the roads are going to be messy and much more difficult to navigate.

Schools get cancelled because of snow. Sports events get cancelled because of snow. Do you know what does not get cancelled because of snow? The newspaper.

That’s right. If every event in the free world gets cancelled, you get your newspaper.

“Rain nor sleet nor hail nor snow” or something like that. If every event in the free world gets cancelled, you will have a paper in your local rack on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

If Christmas is on a Tuesday or a Friday, you will have a paper. That’s cool. We in the newspaper business understand that fact. What makes life a bit more difficult for those of us who cover sports is when atmospheric dandruff falls from the heavens and casts our neatly and meticulously planned weeks into sheer and utter disarray. Blasted flaky stuff.

I also find it odd that it is snowing in the Southeast on the day the Winter Olympics begin. I’m not entirely sure this is not some astronomically expensive marketing ploy by NBC, a struggling network desperate for some kind of ratings spike. Either way, I clearly don’t respond to sudden and unexpected environmental changes as an adult nearly as well as I did when I was 11. Adulthood has a way of sucking the fun out of anything and everything, even a nice February snowfall.

Jeremy D. Smith is the sports editor of the Demopolis Times.