Chapter 1

Neither my wife nor I had any experience with snow to speak of. Jackie was a SoCal girl, growing up within walking distance of Disneyland. Her father was a surgeon, and her family had a tradition of going to the beach to celebrate New Year’s Day.

I grew up in Tucson, where both my mom and dad worked for the University of Arizona Medical Center. Mom was a nurse and dad was in maintenance. They didn’t earn a ton of money, but they got remitted tuition benefits so it was always a forgone conclusion that I was going to stay in town to go to school. When the time came, I moved into the dorms and became an Arizona Wildcat. I met Jackie in my freshman literature seminar.

I can’t say that it was love at first sight, but she was hard to ignore. Unlike most of the other freshman, me included, she didn’t keep her head down and hope that she wasn’t noticed. Her hand was always in the air, and she had an opinion about everything. She had a self-assurance and confidence that you didn’t often see in eighteen-year-olds. She was used to being right, and she was so smart that she usually was.

Between her demeanor and her long brown hair ... and, well, her incredibly firm, D-Cup breasts ... I was hooked. I started paying much more attention in class, and doing all the readings. I wanted to get in on the class discussions without making a fool of myself. Frankly, she made me horny and made me a better student. It took me all semester to get her to say yes, but we had our first date just before finals.

College romances aren’t very stable, but we were the exception. By sophomore year we knew we were meant for each other. We were married after graduation, and we lived in a tiny off-campus apartment while she went after her PhD in American literature and I got my Masters degrees in education and library science.

Because we had to scrape by on the money we made as a substitute teacher (me) and a graduate assistant (her), we had to build our social life around things that we could do on the cheap. We hosted game nights and video nights with other grad students. We went to free art exhibits and poetry readings around town. We hiked. We read to each other. And we had sex. Oh, man, did we have sex.

Like many newlyweds, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. She loved sucking my cock. She’d wait until the most impossible, inopportune time and suddenly she’d have me unzipped and in her hot little mouth in the blink of an eye. On the highway ... in the bathroom at a party ... in the spare bedroom at her family’s house over the holidays ... If I wasn’t in her mouth, I was in her pussy ... or her ass. She might have been a virgin when she went off to college, but by the time we were married she was completely addicted to my cock. And, hey, I sure wasn’t complaining!

The only thing we ever disagreed on was where we eventually wanted to live. She couldn’t wait to get back to the beach, while I didn’t want to live anywhere but the desert or the mountains. Imagine our dismay when we ended up in Syracuse, New York! We’d heard so many terrible stories about the weather that it was the last place on earth either of us wanted to be, but we really didn’t have any choice.

The position at Syracuse University was far better than anything else Jackie was offered, and I did some long-distance interviewing and managed to get a job as a high school librarian in a little school district about a half hour south of the city. So, we packed up all of our meagre belongings from our little Tucson apartment on a hot day in June and drove cross-country in a rented U-Haul.

When we got to Central New York we were delighted to find that our combined income would allow us to buy a house, because we had had more than enough of renting to last us a lifetime. We looked around for a bit and finally found a great deal. It was the proverbial cheapest house in an expensive neighborhood. It was a quiet suburb where everybody kept to themselves and took care of their property. The local school district was one of the best in the state, which was important because we eventually wanted to start a family.

The house itself was about the smallest in the neighborhood, and the yard seemed smaller than everybody else’s, too, but we didn’t mind because it was so private. It sat up on a little hill at the base of a “T” intersection, overlooking both streets. There was a steep, winding driveway flanked by large shrubs and huge stones, and the back yard featured mature shade trees. We fell in love, moved right in, and set up housekeeping for the first time in our lives.

Well, we pretty quickly found out that it’s hard work keeping up with a house ... and expensive. There were dozens of things for which we just hadn’t budgeted. The big one was a lawn mower – I mean, how could we have overlooked that? – but there were also rakes, clippers, garbage cans, and all sorts of tools and paint supplies that you need to make minor home repairs. Hell, we didn’t even have the money to furnish the place! All we had was the furniture from our old apartment, which meant that most of the rooms were empty.

I mention all of this as the reason why we never even thought of buying a snow blower. They cost hundreds of dollars, and when you’re from the Southwest, you’ve never had personal experience with real snow, and you’re enjoying the mid-80’s Syracuse summer it’s easy to convince yourself that you can just buy a snow shovel and spend ten or fifteen minutes scraping off the driveway. More about that later.