“Buffalo — the weak live elsewhere.”

Mark Russell included that line in a poem about the Blizzard of 1977. It should be on bumpers all over the area.

However, contrary to the implications of Russell’s pithy statement, the severity of local winter weather is typically reduced to random snowfalls several days apart, which we shovel away and get on with our lives. Outsiders think we hibernate here. We do nothing of the sort.

Our Western New York childhoods were full of stories about fun in the snow, and we need not abandon that attitude as we grow older. The local winter need not be reduced to hoping for spring.

Let’s start with the great indoors. Local workout centers stay busy in the first few weeks of the new year; then attendance tapers off as newbies find their resolutions are harder than anticipated. Add the number of older regulars who temporarily exile themselves to Florida and elsewhere, and the gyms and fitness centers are surprisingly eager to welcome you.

The way they get through winter in Canada is by curling, the camaraderie-filled shuffleboard/chess match on ice you’ve seen on television. At the foreign end of the Rainbow Bridge is the Niagara Falls Curling Club, and be assured they welcome Americans and beginners.

The Labatt Blue Pond Hockey tournament arrives at the Erie Basin Marina February 10 through 12, but as a street hockey tourney, since winter failed to cooperate. This could bring back a few memories of what you did on a snow day as a kid; a competitive division is available for those “over 40” or you can simply go downtown, breathe in some bracing winter air, and watch.

That same weekend, Niagara Square hosts the Buffalo Winterfest and Powderkeg Festival, with snowman and snow sculpture contests, “snow tennis” and the remarkable and non-competitive tubing event. (Picture yourself in an inflated inner tube, roaring down the Seneca Street off-ramp of the I-190.) Whether you’re watching or involving yourself in these activities, your grandchildren will be thrilled, and you might amaze yourself.

Many suburbs run collegial community events with names like “Winterfest”; this is where some of your tax money goes, so you might take a look or get involved.

There’s more. Dinner and drinks in Ellicottville, whether or not you ski. Visiting all those art galleries and theater companies you’ve never gotten around to enjoying. (WNY has more theatrical groups than banks, and they don’t stop in the winter. Neither should you.)

Informal skating at Rotary Rink, and at the many hockey rinks in the suburbs. Public parks with toboggan runs. Cross-country skiing in Delaware Park or another or our beautifully-managed parks, or simply walking in the snow.

Among the pleasures of living here is the calculated appreciation of winter. This stuff doesn’t frighten us. Get out and enjoy it.