I might be sounding like a broken record, but I love children and I do not like them to be hurt. Be very careful where you let your child/children pick up snow!

After snow falls the area looks pristine. It gives you a feeling of a place that is pure, immaculate, not yet ruined by human or animal encroachment, but you would be surprised.

When Paul was 3 years we were holding hands and walking in the snow. A woman behind us was coughing. It was a rattle kind of cough. She walked by us then she spat. A junk of yellow cold hit the snow and that yellow thing slipped in and disappeared. The snow looked like new…. Spotless!

I said, “Paul, did you see that?”

“Yes.”

“You see why I always told you that the snow is nasty and I would take it off of a car to give you?”

“Yes.”

“Remember never to take it from the ground.” Okay.”

When my Sarah was 2, she was eating chocolate while we were walking in the snow. When we got to the building we lived in, I told her to spit on the snow near the building. The chocolate colored saliva hit the snow and it slipped in. The snow looked spotless.

“Did you see that?”

“It gone,” Sarah said.

“Yes and the snow look clean, but it is not. Do not take snow from the ground. Take it off of a parked car.”

“Okay.”

One day some school children were playing snowball fight. A girl picked up some snow and there was dog do in it.

Another day a lady was walking her dog and the dog did a do. It slipped into the snow and disappeared.

I get pissed because there are areas away from human traffic, where people can walk their dogs.

Please talk to your children about picking up snow from the ground.