If any enthusiasm could be found among many NIU students for what fell from the sky Monday afternoon, it would have to be the faint hope that classes would be cancelled.

Like many fellow students, I had the distinct pleasure of walking around campus for a while and having a nice gust of snow blow smack-dab into my face. It wasn’t the same type of snow that normally excites me. This snow felt like little needles poking me in the face mercilessly—almost like some of those fine hotel showers I’ve endured in my time.

Naturally, such treatment from Mother Nature was not very pleasant, so I anxiously awaited a return to the indoors. About an hour later, the snow stopped—but it soon returned.

While Monday’s little voyage was not worth writing about in one of my Chicago friend’s birthday card, it still was a heck of a lot better than what I experienced throughout last summer in DeKalb. My colleague Dan Moran mentioned in his column last summer that he felt like an unwrung rag in the midst of endless days in the 90s, and only Commonwealth Edison and local appliance stores could have found reason to revel in such temperatures.

Days like Monday conjure up thoughts of spending all summer at Hopkins Park if you live in DeKalb or at Oak Street Beach if Chicago is your headquarters. But non-stop heat waves, such as the one DeKalb had last summer, make Monday’s snow a wonderful event.

I’ve heard a lot of people say they hate winter, and there are those who head to Florida for the winter to avoid the Midwest’s change of pace. I suppose my roommate wouldn’t mind such a schedule because he could play golf all winter—instead of talking all winter about how he’d like to be playing. But even Monday’s needles don’t make me any more anxious to see winter come to an end.

One of my main reasons is very simple. In the winter, you can continue putting clothes on to stay warm, but there is a limit—by law or, in some cases, good taste—about how much clothing you can remove in the summer. I will concede, though, that such extra clothing probably contributes to the apparent reduction in beautiful women on campus—a number that flourishes in August.

But my preference for winter goes beyond apparel. I fully enjoy the regular kind of snow which falls lightly onto the ground and onto the trees. One of my fondest memories of living in my parents’ house was the sight of one inch of snow resting on each branch of the trees. Even though I’m close to graduating from college and am supposedly an adult now, I still get a thrill each time it snows.

With that thrill in mind, it’s easy to understand why this year’s winter has been so exciting. I remember how depressing it was about a week and a half ago when I woke up and my roommate said the snow had melted. This was still January, for gosh sakes. Last year’s memories were even more depressing—except one other reason I like winter …

Yes, Christmas was only 46 days ago, but I’ll be happy to see it return. I was anxious for Christmas 1987, in May 1987. It’s not the same kind of suspense I had when I was 10, when I practically begged my sister to reveal what she bought me for Christmas. But the last two years I’ve had a Christmas tree and other decorations in my apartment, and at least I got a thrill from it.

The only drawback, of course, is dragging the tree outdoors and cleaning up all the needles afterwards. Plus, my latest Visa bill didn’t exactly make me laugh.

The other nice thing winter has to offer was some memories of Chicago. Who in our family can forget the time we got a head-start on putting up our window screens by leaving them up all winter? And believe it or not, I actually enjoyed shoveling the snow. Of course, there were always the neighborhood kids who skitched and received a lecture from my dad in the process.

Hopefully, the ground hog was right this year.