Winter’s Eve arrived on Dec. 20 this year. Despite that day being technically the last day of fall, the coldest of seasons jumped its official start time to flirt with us. In the weeks to come, such “flirtation” will be replaced by more “forward” advances.

Winter’s hint consisted of some flurries and a few pellets of sleet, its intentions announced subtly, in the manner of a “butterfly’s kiss.”

Some years ago, I heard a local TV weatherman say: “It’s snowing a thousand or so feet up, but evaporating before it reaches the ground.”

This TV weather personality-prognosticator was well-groomed,wore a three-piece suit, and was followed by millions of people. Even greater national attention is given to another weather personality-prognosticator (from Pennsylvania); who, although somewhat “grooming-challenged,” is surrounded by an entourage of formally dressed men wearing top hats (in his case, the words “entourage” and “handlers” are interchangeable).

In my first year at Appalachian State University (1969-70), I lived on the sixth floor of Bowie Dorm, then a residence designated for freshman men only. One of my daughter Rachel’s old ASU dormitories was recently razed, and I’m surprised the same hasn’t been done to Bowie, due to the cumulative effects of the “raising” done there over the years.

During one particularly snowy day in the winter of 1969-70, I was studying while eating soup heated in a ceramic mug with built-in heating element. Soup seemed just right for study, while anything weightier would have been likely to “steal the show” by making digestion draw too much blood from the brain, causing sleep.

At that time, Appalachian’s “University Book Store” carried a few items of college student “survival” food: Campbell’s Soup, Beanee Weenees, etc. Just as the case with Barney Fife’s landlady, I don’t think the school allowed hot plates, but I think “hot cups” like mine were okay(and similarly like Barney’s landlady, neither girls nor drink were allowed in Bowie Dorm during my time there).

To reading and soup, I added music. The music was a recording of the “Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin,” a Wagnerian rarity in that instead of bombastic brass, it was mostly filled with strings played “ethereally” in their upper register.

A book, a bowl of soup, and a playing record, a bit like that famous verse from “The Rubaiyat,” but minus a jug of wine and a woman (since, as previously mentioned, both were “verboten!”).

Momentarily glancing at my window while taking a break from studying, I saw what looked to be a million snowflakes in leisurely cascade, the treble strains of softly- bowed violins providing perfect theme music for their stately descent.

It seemed as if that snow’s birthplace couldn’t possibly have been too much higher than where I was sitting: the next-to-highest floor of a high rise college dorm in the North Carolina mountains.

Back home, along the Old Concord Road, I would sometimes visually track a single flake down to its eventual resting place on the snow blanket, but this was impossible to do from a distance of six stories.

High up in Bowie Dorm, I was sure that just like back home, the usually unseen tracks of birds, squirrels, and rabbits were starting to appear far below me in the snow. In a way, those snow tracks are like the secret messages revealed in a childhood magic trick involving lemon juice, quill, paper and candle flame; except in this case, something frozen, instead of hot, is the architect of revelation. (For younger readers unacquainted with this, Google: “Invisible lemon-juice writing.”)

I snapped pictures of animal snow tracks in my boyhood yard, and was particularly impressed by one scene, literally speaking: “flight.” It was the site of a bird’s “take-off,” feathers having made a different kind of “snow angel.”

That day at Boone, I thought about my six-story distance above the ground of Watauga County. I also considered the height from my home soil of Rowan County, down the mountain, and miles away in the Piedmont.

I have lived in the “flatlands” for many years now, but sometimes think about past winter days in Boone. I remember that particular snowy day from my Bowie Dorm vantage point whenever a weather man says something even remotely resembling: “It’s snowing a thousand or so feet up.”

I then recall that I have been there too, upwards of a thousand feet or so, on equal footing with the falling snow.