After all the fear and trembling of television news reports and monster storm pronouncements in the newspapers, I would like to say that I like snow.

I was in my yard here in Rumford on Friday with snow falling slowly around me, a single crow calling way back in Blue Heron Swamp behind my home, and I was happy to be surrounded by this white snowy world.

I feel that I am fortunate to be living in a beautiful snowy white world that comes for a short time during the year here in Maine. I feel I am fortunate because there is great beauty in this snowy white natural world with its cold clear air here in Maine.

While the wind increasing the cold with temps below zero does not make me happy, I would not leave Maine because of the two weeks of very cold weather that we normally have.

So, I encourage everyone to slow down, to stop, to experience the beauty and the silence, the peace, of slowly falling snow here in Maine, that exists to counteract a stressful, hyperactive world.

Yes, I love winter, I honestly love natural Maine, the white snow.

Stop, and see the beauty. Embrace the silence, the peace.

Thomas Fallon, Rumford