Snowball
By: susan peterson stamis
Tags: foreign service, indian burn, sister, snow, snowball, state department
Category: Uncategorized
I’m 11 years old, my sister, 18. As she gazes toward the camera, I sneak up on her with a snowball. The scarf wrapped around her head might obscure her peripheral vision, and I’m dumb enough to believe she’s unaware of my intention.
What am I thinking? Am I hoping in some small way to get revenge for all the years of cross county drives, when in the back of the car, she would draw an imaginary line down the middle of the seat, and instruct me not to cross it under any circumstances, “or else?”
Or am I just living in the moment, tempting fate with a fling of the snowball? In any case, the picture freezes time, when in fact, the action of scooping the snow, tamping it into ammunition and actually nailing her with it at close range probably took about 5 seconds.
I hope it was worth it, because she probably gave me an Indian burn later.
2 comments on “Snowball”
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About Me
My father was a Consular Officer in the United States Foreign Service. He was first stationed in post World War II Berlin, where I was born in 1950. Subsequently, we lived in the Philippines; Jamaica; Guatemala; Washington, DC; Greece; Ceylon and Mexico; visiting many places in between. I was reared by my parents and nurtured by the various amahs, nannies, and housemaids who, every two years or so, entered and exited my little life.
I was educated in American Schools in “foreign lands,” but the most fascinating classrooms were the exotic locales where we lived, and the most inspiring teachers were the colorful people of those exotic and ancient cultures.
The bi-annual “home leaves” which my family spent at my grandparents’ homes in Los Angeles, California provided a sense of constancy to our nomadic lifestyle. My many aunts, uncles and cousins lived there and I eagerly looked forward to those vacations. We were 1st and 2nd generation Greek Americans (all 4 of my grandparents had immigrated at the turn of the century), and thus had foreignness stamped onto us even though we were Americans.
Two of my father’s siblings were also in the diplomatic service, and we world-traveling cousins were a source of endless curiosity to our domestic counterparts when we came home speaking English with unusual accents, reducing the statesiders to hysterics.With his various cameras, Kodachrome, Ektachrome, 16 millimeter, Super 8 and Polaroid, my father rarely lost an opportunity to document the events unfolding around us. After years of waiting patiently in boxes under the stairs, these photographic records are now fulfilling their purpose as mnemonic retrievals of my little life.
Mnemonic Retrievals 
Gosh! I love this one. I love the pic… It is priceless! Priceless!!! You look a little unsure about your decision to launch that thing, but I am sure you did it anyway. So great…
oh youbetcha i launched it!