Photos by Melissa Walsh.

By Melissa Walsh
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While a wave of revolution swept Eastern Europe 30 years ago, I was completing my degree in International Studies in Sarajevo and Vienna. During that time, I also traveled to Krakow and Warsaw, Poland, and to Prague, Czechoslovakia, participating in short-term study programs.

This month, November 2019, as I’m compiling a memoir about my years abroad during the late 1980s, I’m consumed with nostalgia from my three visits to Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic. The first was while in transit to Poland by train in March 2019. The next was five days in Prague in April 1989. And the most recent was in July 2018, when I spent three days in Prague with two of my sons.

But why is this month special? In addition to marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 9), this month commemorates 30 years of democracy in the former Czechoslovakia (which in 1993 became the Czech Republic and Slovakia). Czechoslovakia had been a communist country since 1948. A series of reforms in the 1960s and a period of strikingly liberal revisions in 1968, known as Prague Spring, which included rolling back censorship, prompted the August 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia by troops from Warsaw Pact countries. A tight Eastern-bloc hold on Czechoslovakia remained for two decades.

Czechoslovakia’s November 1989 Velvet, or Gentle, Revolution, began on November 17 with a student demonstration honoring International Students’ Day — a commemoration of the 1939 student demonstration against the Nazis, during which 1,200 Czech students were sent to concentration camps and nine were executed. The demonstration spawned additional anti-government protests over the next ten days, including a wide-reaching, nation-wide general strike on November 27.

On November 28, 1989, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced the end of the party’s monopoly of power. Days later, the constitution was revised and the borders opened.
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On December 29, 1989, well-known playwright and political dissident Václav Havel became President of Czechoslovakia.

The first two times I was in Czechoslovakia, in 1989, Havel was in prison.

In his memoir To the Castle and Back, Václav Havel called the 1989 revolution, described in the video below, “a drama in several acts.”

Havel had been active in advocating for liberal reform that led to the Prague Spring in 1968. With the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia the following August, his passport was seized and his plays were banned. Havel continued advocating for human rights, resulting in several arrests and a four-year imprisonment (1979-1983). By this time, Havel was recognized domestically and abroad as an important political dissident and crusader for human rights, earning him the Erasmus Prize in 1986.

Havel was sentenced to nine months in prison on February 21, after being accused and convicted of organizing a January 1989 anti-Communist demonstration, during which Charter 77 dissident activists laid flowers at the memorial of Jan Palach — the young man who burned himself alive in January 1969 in protest to the 1968 Warsaw Pact occupation of Czechoslovakia. He was released early from prison on May 17, 1989.

In late March 1989, I was on a train from Vienna to Krakow, passing through Czechoslovakia. I remember my luggage being searched by police. Everyone’s was. The police also removed the ceiling panels in the train compartment and searched there. They searched everywhere. It was a tense experience.​

I also remember chatting with two Czechoslovakian guys about my age. I was 21.

By Melissa Walsh

Here in Detroit, we were hit yesterday with 7 to 8 inches of snow. After work and school, we shoveled with a chase of hot chocolate. No big deal. I like winter.

The only thing I find annoying when winter happens is the bombardment of whining about winter. With each snowfall, my Facebook and Twitter feeds light up with the grumbling. And these laments aren't from the folks who have a legitimate snowfall grievance -- those who are too old or sick to shovel their walk and drive. The gripes, I noticed, usually come from healthy people. And I know many of these people have gym memberships. Snowflakes.

Just stop it.

Enjoy the snow-shovel workout, maybe with your dog or with a kid. Toss snow on the dog. Dogs love that. Throw a snowball at the kid. Kids love that.

Or listen to some tunes and get your snow-shovel groove going. Work it. Feel that winter beat.

Snow is pretty. Snow is fun. Snow is glorious. It’s soft. In the light, sparkles like diamonds.

Some of my fondest memories wouldn’t have happened without snow. The ski trips with friends. Tobogganing with my dad when I was little. Making snow angels on the playground.

Years later, I enjoyed watching my kids build snow bunkers before waging a snowball battle. Today, I enjoy walking my dog on a quiet day while sporting my warm coat, my Habs tuque, and my comfy boots. I like hearing the snow crunching beneath my steps. I'm happy. The dog is happy. Life is good in the snow.

And that’s not all snow is good for —  the fun and the beauty. It’s also healthy. Yes, snow is good for our health!

Snowfall means cold weather, which is good for our bodies. We burn more calories when we’re chilled. Seasonal  allergies and inflammation are reduced in cold weather. Scholars have written white papers presenting evidence that we think more clearly in cold weather. (Here’s a link to one of those papers.)

We sleep better in the winter. And our blood flow is more oxygenated as the body warms itself, especially during a winter work out — like working that like snow-shoveling rhythm or that winter wonderland strut with the dog.

Mother Earth also benefits from an abundantly snowy winter. Snow’s “blanket effect” insulates the landscape for healthy gardens. Melting snow provides moisture for dormant plants and evergreens and replenishes the water supply. These environmental truths about snow not only benefit humans, but also outdoor animals in their natural habitat.

The sunlight that snow reflects into the atmosphere helps the planet maintain a healthy solar energy balance and a regulated surface temperature.

Here, where I live, in the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere, 98 percent of the planet’s snow falls. Without healthy snow fall here in the North, other areas of the planet are affected negatively due to a global "snowpack" shift. Less snowfall leads to changes in global cooling, which causes bad things happen, such as unexpected arrival of monsoons and other storms at unestimated lengths of duration.

So to the people who complain about snow — those living in snowpack towns like mine: Do you really want the alternative?  A lack of snow fall where you live has catastrophic consequences. Stop complaining.

If you hate snow so much, then take steps to move south.

But most importantly, while you're living in the snowbelt, be mindful about helping a neighbor who is too old or sick to shovel their driveway.