'Loved most a blizzard'

“He loved winter more than the other seasons, loved  a tender snowfall, loved the savage north wind and the blinding light off a frozen lake, loved most  a blizzard, which he faced head-on like a bison. He would not admit these things, however, because in his superstition he believed that by revealing desires among sacred subjects, such as weather and seasons, you would likely receive the opposite of what you wanted.’’ 

-- Ernest Hebert (born 1941), in The Dogs of March (1979) . He is best known for the Darby Chronicles Series, a series of seven novels written between 1979 and 2014 about modern life in a fictional New Hampshire town as it changed from relative rural poverty to becoming more upscale, almost suburban. He was born in, and spent many years in and around, Keene, N.H. It’s a very pleasant small city in southwest New Hampshire.

Central Square, in Keene