I don't care if I sound old and crotchety; I'm going to say it. This generation is one namby-pamby spoiled bunch of couch potatoes. Our nation is doomed, because our children don't know how to play.

I don't care if the snow is too wet. I don't care if it's too icy. You go out there and you play, by golly. It only snows once a year, for heaven's sake. Play like it's your job. Turn that pristine whiteness into a muddy field that will have to be reseeded in the spring because you tore it up during that last grass covered roll of the jumbo snowman.

I don't care if you're sick with the flu. You go out there and you play with a temperature of 104.1 and you like it. You play until you lose your gloves and your fingers turn raw and wrinkled and you've lost all feeling in them. You play until your socks are wet and there is sweat running down your back and snot pouring out of your nose. You play until you've covered every square inch of your yard and your neighbor's yard and any other piece of pristine white with muddy footprints.

Why, when I was a child, I broke my leg sledding. Granted, I was the oldest and should have known better, but I couldn't resist the allure of risky experimentation. How fast could we go if all four of us got on the sled at once?

The answer is: very fast. How was I to know we would veer sharply to the right as the sled raced down the hill, gaining speed by the second? How was I to know that there would be a log in the way? Thinking only of the dismal heap that would result if we hit it full speed, I stuck out my leg as a brake. How was I to know my brake would break and we would still end up in a heap?

Did I go crying back to my mother? No! I'm a Virginian. And even at a young age, I grasped the transient nature of snowfall in our state. I was going to savor it, dagnabbit, broken bone or not. So, I had my friends bundle me up and put some snow around my leg and pull me about the woods and forest of Nottoway in the sled. We got stuck in a ravine.

I was a little bossy back then. Just a little. And, I've gotten over that. Except for when I see the complete disregard for the divine unction for playing in the snow that I saw last Friday. When I was a child, I had fun and it almost killed me and I like it, by golly, and all was well with the future of the world.

Where is that spirit today? Sure, a herd of children were allegedly seen playing in the snow out at Hampden-Sydney. And smaller packs were reported to have been seen roaming the woods of Burkeville and Prospect. And, of course, there was that front page photo of one child sledding down the Moton hill in the broad daylight during a father's lunch break. Some say she even begged to ride down one more time even though the bottom splashed muddy water like a log flume. But that picture could have easily been doctored.

And, even if it hadn't been, do you know how long it took for the photographer to find those children at play? Hours. That photographer was on the verge of paying some kids to go play and whose to say she didn't? Really, this is all we can do?

One of the perks of my job is that, despite what you may think, I don't sit in front of my computer screen writing all day. Typing probably consumes less than 25 percent of my time. What do I do instead? Research. Explore. Talk. Read. Meet people. Take pictures. Sit, downcast, with my elbow on my knee and my knuckles to my chin in the posture of The Thinker.

Well, the rising of Friday's light revealed the first snow of the season. And, I thought I would take some pictures. Not just pictures of pretty peaceful snowflakes falling or the stark outline of trees in the distance. Although, I have plenty of those and they are- thank you very much- very nice.

Rather, I wanted some action shots, dynamic pictures, with people. Ones that could possibly include such captions as “Man Battles Snow Monster,” “Fall Of The Biggest Snowman Ever,” “Local Youth Build World-Class Luge Track” or “Weeeeeeee.”

So, I sallied forth into the snow, armed with my camera and prowled the streets of Farmville to do my job. It shouldn't have been hard. It was a snow day after all. The schools were out. What else were children going to be doing?

I visited some of my old childhood snow haunts. The steep road behind the hospital has been plowed, but I remember careening down it by the soft orange glow of a security light. The rugby field between the Avenues bore not a single child-sized footprint. The hill behind Moton was desolate, except for a few tracks of late night sledders.

Even the Big Hill on River Road – the one that you now have to sign a waiver to sled down, it's that fun – had not been touched. It was leaned back on its elbows, at rest in all of its unsullied beauty, mocking me. That hill destroyed a favorite plastic sled of mine, borrowed by my older brother during his college days and never returned. It shattered to a million bits landing a jump built a little too high on snow that was a little too icy. The person riding the sled got away only slightly better off.

After hours of seeking out children at play in the snow, I retired for lunch and warmth, only to find a not-so young man intent on constructing his very own snowman on the back patio of Charley's. He looked focused and serious. Unaware of the cold in his short sleeved shirt as he rolled the snow around.

Perhaps we don't know what we have 'til it's gone. Perhaps not the young, but the young at heart are the true holders of the secrets of the snow. Yes, we adults are the ones who leave out our mixing bowls on the roof of our cars to catch unsullied snow for snow cream, borrow our kid-sisters' sled to ride down the mother of all hills or spend the better part of a Friday driving around in the snow to “work.”

Evidently, young and old alike may get another chance this weekend to play in the snow. Let it come and may we learn from our mistakes. May we get out there in the wet and cold and break a few bones for the sake of our state, our country and our world.

(Photos unsullied snow, a previous few children at play and the “not-so” young man hard at work constructing his snowman can be seen at www.farmvilleherald.com.)