We have to be careful what we say about snow these days. We're such enthusiasts that we forget there are people who don't like it These are the people who really have to deal with snow, who have to go to school or to work regardless of the weather, or have to drive to Logan Airport for an early flight. We rarely need to go anywhere, but even back when we did, when we too went to work and to school, we liked the snow. It muted the noise of highway traffic and covered the dirt, and it softened the hard outlines of the city. It even inspired a grudging friendliness in some of our neighbors.

Sometimes the first indication of snow is an extraordinary silence early in the morning, when there are no sounds except for the oil burner and the refrigerator. At other times it's the heavy rumble of a snowplow. The plows are out early here, and they do a better job of clearing the streets than in the city. The trucks spread sand on the roads, not salt and cinders. "Sand is the enemy," our friend the floor refinisher says, but sand is what we live in, and believe me, it's better than dirt.

Last winter we had one big snow, of over a foot with deeper drifts. We dared each other to take our regular walk in the 10 degree temperature and 40 mile an hour wind. We made the first tracks that day on the trail from Doane Rock to Coast Guard Beach. "This is crazy!" we hollered at each other. And later, "This is what we came for!"

It was beautiful. We saw "wonderful things," as Howard Carter said when he first looked into King Tut's tomb. Colors of sky and water that we'd never seen before. Snow on the beach and huge waves with their crests blown back in great plumes and rising like smoke thirty feet in the air. And everywhere, the snow falling on cedars. We saw strange things too, like footprints and pine cones raised on four-inch pedestals, where the wind had blown away the powdery stuff around them, and here and there an expanse of tiny, wind-formed contour lines that looked like a topographic map.

There were many deer tracks. We hadn't seen any deer yet, and we'd wondered how the deer ticks managed without them. There were hundreds of rabbit tracks, of course, maybe thousands, and large flocks of Canadian robins gobbling the cedar berries. We finally met some fellow travellers on the trail. We passed one couple on cross country skis. They didn't appear to be having fun.

More snows came after that, both last winter and this one. None was as deep, but each one had some unique quality. Once a hard wind drove wet snow onto the north side of every branch and twig, every street sign, building, leaf, and needle, and it all froze in place and lasted for days. We took far too many pictures. Another time the snow fell not in flakes but in bundles of flakes and gathered on the bare branches like cotton balls. The day warmed as we walked through the Red Maple Swamp, and the blobs melted and fell on our heads.

And once, as I drove to the Middle School early on a December morning, I found the roads completely clear but every branch and twig coated with new snow. The remaining red brown oak leaves were topped with white and every pitch pine needle was presented like a piece of costume jewelry. A Hayden piano trio was playing on the radio, and the car seemed to float a few inches above the road. Snow can do that.