John Delach

December 2025 

The Friday morning following Thanksgiving 2025, found me and several of my relatives sitting in our Four-Season Room having coffee, OJ, muffins, left over apple crumb, sour cherry and pumpkin pie as we waited for several additions to our party to arrive.

It was cold, below freezing, but the sun warmed the inside of our room. I sat there with my second cup of coffee reading the E-Edition of Long Island Newsday while sharing Thanksgiving thoughts with my wife, Mary Ann and son-in-law, Tom Briggs. His wife, Beth and daughter, Marlowe, who was named after the town, occupied themselves getting ready to pick up Beth’s friend, Tommie who caught a ride that morning from his home in Burlington, VT.

The plan was for Beth and Marlow to drive to Lebanon, NH where they would meet and drive Tommie the rest of the way to our place in Marlow that my wife named “Little House” way back in 1984 when we first bought it.

Also, on the way to stay with us were my two oldest Grandson’s Drew and Matt Delach, 26 and 24 respectively. They were driving north from their homes in Fairfield, CT using Drew’s Toyota Tacoma.

The TV was turned to one of the networks’ NFL pre-game shows. The commentators did their best to entertain us by exploring one of the three games that were to be played that day.

At about ten, the sun disappeared and the sky began to darken as thicker and thicker clouds began to push across the sky from the west. Conversation stopped as the wind began to swirl and heavier and heavier hail began to blow upon the room. It danced off the glass sounding like a drum beating in overtime.

We there in shock as the hail turned to snow. Lights were turned on and everyone came into the room to better see what was going on. The weather folks had forecast a cold and sunny day which obviously, turned out to be wrong. Several grabbed their cell phones tuning in their favorite weather sources.

All of them were as shocked as we were. It seemed that a narrow front had developed that was less than twenty miles across and we were in the center. Snow began to accumulate immediately on our cars and trucks, the grass, ground, and the roof of the house.

Beth and Marlowe planned to drive to Lebanon in Marlowe’s Jeep Renegade that Mary Ann had recently given to her. Instead, Beth chose to use their new Hyundai Santa Fe as she believed it had better traction.

One good thing, I had the Renegade inspected and serviced a week earlier and I had even added a snow scrapper that turned out to be the only one any of us had.

Drew and Matt also arrived in the storm using four-wheel drive.

Shortly afterward, the snow slowed, stopped and the sun re-appeared. The sun didn’t stay very long as we discovered the eye of the storm was passing over our camp. Sure enough, round two began shortly thereafter. It didn’t last as long as the first half and the sun returned for good less than an hour later but not before we received a total of three inches of snow.

Beth, Marlowe and friend, Tommie, safely arrived in this new setting. That, dear reader, is what Marlow, NH can be all about. Welcome to our unexpected winter wonderland.

We retuned home on Sunday, Beth and Tom to Brooklyn, Mary Ann and me to Port Washington and Marlowe and Tommie to school at Syracuse.

On Tuesday, Marlow was buried under seven-inches of snow, and so it goes.