We never used to talk this much about snow.

And when we did, the talk wasn't nearly so negative as it has become.

Once, snow was that gentle blanket that turned the dull browns and grays of winter to something akin to cinnamon on a hot bun or the background that made gray a more distinguished accent to landscape.

Television is to blame (in fact, TV has to take the blame for a lot of changes). What this medium did was try to make a crisis out of a thing we can't control. Easy enough to do, and making all of it “visual” and dramatic captured all those viewers out there who have nothing else to do or think about except to get their money's worth out of the recliner the preceding ad sold them to watch it all the way through.

Now, we're conditioned to jump in the car, drive at break-neck speed to the store for milk and bread before the “blizzard” that turns into a trackin' snow hits us.

It's crazy, and we know it is, but we keep doing it. Television, especially too much of it, does that to us.

Part of this new view of snow has to do with our love affair with cars, machines that have left the realm of mere transport and taken on the meaning that television's taken. Both have become members of the family, television taking over a corner of the living or family room and the car with its own room attached there at the end of the house.

But snow makes us question how we've ended up giving the TV and the car more time, attention and protection than we extend to children or grandparents and other live-ins around the house. What we do for both when it snows is to go to great lengths to keep one out of it and sit in front of the other and watch a “storm track team” standing in it and telling us it's snowing, blowing and drifting, forgetting we have windows.

Now, the Weather Service has gotten into the act with a new rating system for winter storms. The severity of the storm will be judged in the future, not by depth or drifting, but by the numbers of people affected.

The forecasters may soon be telling us that four inches of snow in Louisville is a worse storm than four feet of snow in a rural area of the state.

They're going to get some flack on this one. We're so conditioned to crisis that any time there's even a hint of being in the category of “snowed in,” we automatically start listing all the things we simply must have to survive until the melt -- combs, a can of mushrooms, a replacement wrench, vacuum cleaner bags, things like that.

We'll simply have to get out. That's all there is to it, and besides, the Weather Service says the four feet of snow is just yellow on a 5-color scale, so we'll go, despite the fact we'll be stuck at the end of the driveway muttering about how this isn't a red alert snow.

So, do you see what's happening?

Snow has become virtual. Or, it has all the aspects of reality, but it's not real actually. Kind of like television and cars.

It wasn't always this way. Growing up, I don't recall snow days at school. We just went. The only problem was that it took longer, meaning recess was cut shorter and we couldn't be out there in what we were seeing from windows, those things that farmed reality for us.

We played in snow. All day! Ice wasn't a crisis; it was a gift that let us do things as rare as skating. There were a few hazards such as putting your tongue on a pump handle or woven wire fence, but such things were no worse than rusty nails in June. Snow let us track some wild creature through a full day of hunting.

And we were rarely bundled to the point of immobility as children are now. Somehow, snow has gotten the bad rap of being the carrier of flu, sore throats, earaches and pneumonia. But, it's germs that do all that kind of damage and none of them likes snow. We ate snow! It's not bad with cream and sugar. And it will set just about any kind of homemade taffy you can rustle up (without going to the store).

Grown-ups around us knew that we'd get most of the winter's snow in February and March, and they prepared for it. Being prepared for it, they, too, could look forward to it with some anticipation.

They did not always react to it the way we did. We yelled a lot, screamed a lot, rolled in it, threw it at each other, since we knew the hit counted and the hurt didn't. All this came from the sheer beauty of snow, deep or light. It was the expression of an elementary understanding of beautiful

We wished for it, didn't look at the possibility of snow with any kind of dread. We didn't fear it as we did other weather events like tornadoes.

Next time it snows, just go with it. Let it snow, get into it, and see what happens.