Snow Flurries on Big Bearpen

It was colder than I had expected in Highlands this morning, 42 degrees and a brisk wind blowing, mostly overcast with fast-moving clouds.  "I don't need to run when it's that cold," Martha had told me on my way out the back door. "I can go this afternoon."  I was beginning to think I should have waited, too.  What is there about just a taste of warm weather this time of year that makes blackberry winter even harder to bear?

I started up Chestnut Street and saw that there were two vehicles parked at the foot of Big Bearpen, one of them belonging to Fred.  As I approached I saw that Fred and another man I did not know had part of the sign down on the ground below it, probably adding or deleting a name.  Fred takes it upon himself to maintain the sign, in the same way that he keeps a weather station at his home and reports the temperature to the local radio station every morning:  good old Methodist civic-mindedness.

"Are you going to run up Big Bearpen?" Fred asked.
 "I hadn't planned on it.  Are you trying to shame me into it?"
"No," he said.
"I just decided!" I said.  "I'm going up!"  Fred shook his head.

It was not a whim as much as a desire to warm up, and I had achieved that by the time I reached the first switchback.  Big Bearpen has that effect when you run it week after week - it seems a little easier every time; I was standing on the summit in no time, stopping to stretch and look out over the distant lakes of South Carolina.  The wind was still brisk, and I kept rolling my sleeves down and then back up again as it ebbed and flowed.

Half-way down the mountain, I saw Fred's car approaching on the way up.  "Are you running?" I asked.  He said he had intended to, but had changed his mind when he arrived at the park.  "Martha had the same idea," I said.  "She's going this afternoon."

"It's snowing, you know," Fred said quietly, and sure enough, while we were standing talking, a tiny snowflake drifted down between us, and then another.  "Thanks for pointing that out!" I said.  And for the next five minutes, I was running in a light snow flurry, at 42 degrees, here on May 12.  But this is Highlands, after all.  By the time I had reached Sixth Street and turned on Main, the sun was shining and the sky was blue.