By Neil Offen

noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646

DURHAM -- The signs of normalcy were almost everywhere.

At the corner of East Franklin and Columbia streets, in Chapel Hill, a man in a red sweat shirt held out four Carolina men's basketball tickets in his right hand and kept shouting out, "Anybody need tickets? Anybody need tickets?"

At the Family Fare gas station on Garrett Road, Lamont Hillingsworth ran in for his usual pack of smokes. "I couldn't get out to buy them yesterday," Hillingsworth said. "But I'm here today."

The lines at the grocery in the South Square Target were long, but not with people filling up on bread and milk. "Just doing my usual shopping," Meryle Heafner said. "I always shop on Sundays."

After a winter storm socked the area, bringing with it six or so inches of snow and closing down the area for most of Saturday, life came stirring back Sunday.

Kids were still out, testing their sleds and skateboards and celebrating that, because of expected slick roads, there will be no school today.

At Forest Hills Park, Evan Grigoriadis was having a snowball fight with some friends. "I'm pretty good," he said. "I know how to make good snow balls."

But a lot of the grownups also were out, back to their regular routines.

At least a few joggers, for instance, were out on the American Tobacco Trail.

"Snow doesn't bother me," said one jogger, who couldn't stop to give his name. "I need to get my miles in."

Pam Cowan was at the Petco store in Patterson Place, going to pick up some food for her chinchilla.

"I had enough food for me when the snow hit," Cowan said. "But I forgot to load up on the chinchilla food. I'm glad I could get it today."

Alyce and Jeff Killton walked along Academy Road, pulling their toddler in his plastic sled.

"We're not really going anywhere," Alyce Killton said. "We just wanted to get out of the house."

Outside the South Square Target, Ashley Rohl, a newly hired nurse at Duke Hospital, walked purposefully back to her car, carrying a number of items she had just exchanged.

"This is nothing," she said, surveying the mushy parking lot. "I'm from South Dakota. I'm used to dealing with a lot worse than this."