The thing about “missing” Buffalo is that I’m not in Buffalo, so I can tell you what I miss only after hearing firsthand stories about the awful Friday the 13th snowstorm and havoc it wreaked. And I still believe that, even if you were there and suffered the effects, one day, you will miss Buffalo, too, despite this storm.

I miss waking up and being surprised by seeing snowfall in October. I miss hearing on the radio that school’s out for the day, in more places than the usual rural towns and villages that luck out every winter. I miss seeing the mess left by fierce, unpredictable Nature cleaned up over time–totally cleaned up, until next time.

I miss people who, just because it’s in their nature, knock on their neighbors’ doors to see if they’re OK. I miss neighbors who shovel your sidewalk and a path to your door as well as their own, expecting nothing in return. I miss seeing kids and grownups rolling a small snowball in the wet snow, pulling up packed, dense white stuff all the way from the grass below, then trying to lift that huge ball onto the first huge ball to make a snowman.

I miss walking along carless roads in the crisp night air hearing only my breath and the crunch of snow under my boots.

There are plenty of things I don’t miss, too, but I do miss the character those things instill in the people who learn to handle them.