There are perhaps gentler ways to jolt your senses into realizing how swiftly time has moved on, but a bone-chilling trip in late December to northern Wisconsin was the trick for Rob Oppenheim.
Oh, it checked a few boxes, for sure. His Florida born-and-raised children had never seen snow? There was plenty. Snowmobiling, tobogganing, and snowballs? Yes. A veritable winter wonderland? Most definitely.
“It was something they had never seen before and they had a blast,” said Oppenheim, who went with his wife, Lacey, and children (Zoey is 10, her brother James is 7), to visit his in-laws over the holidays. “It was so different for them.”
But when it was suggested to Oppenheim, who was raised in Andover, Mass., that it must have brought back memories, he laughed. “I probably haven’t been in winter for any period of time since (1997-98),” he said. “Crazy to realize that.”