by Paula Geister

Created on: January 06, 2009   Last Updated: January 08, 2009

Michigan is known for cold snowy weather in the winter and this particular instance was no exception. We'd just had a blizzard and my son and his dad had their picture taken in the front yard playing in a snowball fight. Roads were plowed finally and sidewalks cleared, but it took days. We were fortunate to live in town, even though we seemed to be like everyone in the rural areas and were snowed in.

My son was six years old and quite mischievous. He could think of all kinds of antics to get attention. Cabin fever and being snowed in would not stop him. He wanted to get out into the weather like any boy. Snow was an opportunity!

While the rest of us were cozy inside staying warm, and out of trouble I might add, my son decided to go visiting. First, however, he prepared himself for his foray into the cold. He took with him, without my knowing it, a paper grocery bag. I only heard the story later when my father-in-law told it to me.

The clever little six-year-old took his paper grocery bag and filled it with snowballs. Then, with the spirit of an entrepreneur, he traveled throughout the neighborhood, selling them. Talk about the person who could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. He actually sold one to his grandpa who lived down the block. He also sold one to the banker two houses away who obviously knew a good business investment when he saw one.

So with our family harboring a snowball entrepreneur, we muddled through the rest of the winter. We may have on occasion gotten snowed in again, but had no blizzards of that magnitude for the rest of the season. Dad and son still played out in the wet, however, and come spring, we welcomed the warmth and the thaw.

Then one spring day, my son, now approaching his seventh birthday, came running home to tell me he'd had an experience all the kids in the neighborhood were jealous of. It seems the banker truly did know an investment when he saw it. He'd saved the snowball, safely tucked away in his freezer, for a special occasion.

Watching the snowball-selling boy playing in the yard of a neighbor, he called him to the porch and asked him to wait there. Dutifully, my son stood on the sidewalk and waited to see what Mr. Humphreys wanted. Moments later, the banker appeared with a snowball in his hand and gave it to the wide-eyed child.

Well, what does a wide-eyed child do with a snowball in April? He drops it on the sidewalk and watches it go "splat!"

The chance to toss a snowball in April in Michigan isn't necessarily something that would never happen, as anyone from here will tell you. But that day, a banker gave a six-year-old boy a new reason to love days when everyone is snowed in at home to buy from a traveling snowball salesman.

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