"Does it snow in Space?"

"Huh? Uh, no." I looked over at my son, nose pressed against the window. Inches of snow were bending the branches low and covering the yard and driveway. "There is no moisture in Space, no clouds, so snow can't form."

He thought about that for a minute. "But snow comes from the sky. Where does the sky end and Space begin?"

As a parent, when you start to get out of your depth, you deflect. "Why this sudden interest in Space?"

"Frank says that spacemen live in a space ship. It is like a big camper but it has everything. TV, video games, any kind of food they want."

I was on safer ground here. "But they can't go out to play."

"Yes they can. They have a snow suit like mine. But it has a radio and a cell phone and a camera."

Buddy did have a snowsuit that looked like a space suit. I thought I knew now where this was headed. "Would you like to put on your spacesuit and go out to play?"

"No. There is nothing to do."

"What about making a Snowman?"

Buddy gave me a look that was half pitying and half grimace. "Dad, I'm nine. Snowmen are for little kids."

"Well, since you are a big kid now, you can help me shovel the driveway. Get suited up." I really did not want to go out but I knew if I didn't do something the mood was going to get a lot darker in here.

The garage door protested as it opened. Snow had drifted up against the door and cascaded onto the floor when its support was gone. Buddy looked out with dismay. "How we gone shovel this?"

He had a point. Where it had drifted, the snow was as high as his shoulders. There was no way to tell how deep it was further out. We were looking at a vast white desert with white lumps where the bushes had been. It was just one big, white, open space.

"Well, you wanted to do a space walk," I told him. I turned, picked him up, and flung him over the drift and into the snow, spinning him slightly so he landed on his back.

"Hey!" And then, "Dad!" And then "umpfff" as he landed in the soft snow and sunk in so that the snow fell in on his face and body. Then silence.

I started to worry but then I heard a light giggle that turned into a laugh that turned into a guffaw and the hole in the snow that was Buddy became a snow angel as he flailed to get up, and then a snowman. "Dad" he said, to make sure I was looking at him, and he boosted a double handful of snow towards my face.

I took a step back, then another. Then two quick steps forward and I dove over the snowdrift and tackled my son. "Throw snow at me, will ya? Well, how about this?" I rolled in the snow with him in my arms. Sputtering as he came up for air, Buddy broke away. Splashing snow towards my face, as we sometimes did in the pool in summer, he windmilled backwards to get some space between us.

Then, while I was there on my knees, my son did the unexpected. He attacked. I let him bowl me over and we wrestled there in the snow, in the driveway. He gave as good as he got and we were both pretty tuckered as we rolled to our backs to catch our breath. Looking up at the gray sky, with fat, lazy snowflakes still drifting down, Buddy said, "I'm glad I'm not in a spaceship right now."

"Why is that, bucko?"

"No room to wrestle," and he jumped up, flung snow at me, then put about ten feet between us. "Guess we better get to clearing the drive," he said.

The way he said it, so grown up, just after we had been horsing around, put a lump in my throat. "Guess we better."

"Dad, when we're done, would you help me make a snowman?"

"The biggest in town, Buddy. The biggest you've ever seen."

That was thirty years ago. Bud has his own family now. Just the other day they were in town to visit and we had a freak snow storm. Standing at the window, looking out, Bud said "Say Dad, remember when you threw me in a snowbank and we made a giant snowman? That's the best memory I have."

Me too, Buddy. Me too.