Groundhog Day
It’s snowing again. Each day has been like Groundhog Day. I wake up and it starts to snow. Somedays it is for minutes, while other days it’s squall alerts like today. The snow makes for quiet in town, as it seems no one wants to venture out. A few scattered cars have passed but no plows yet. The cars that do, are driving pretty slow for a change through town. Living on the edge of Main Street I get to watch the comings and goings of town. I witness the occasional Police car with lights and sirens blasting, or the kid that just got his first truck, minus a muffler buzzing through town as if to let us all know that he is now a driver.
When I first moved up here, in the winter months the house phone used to ring non- stop in the mornings. People wanting the report on Main Street, was it cleared off yet, or have the plows come through, is it icy still? The women and men that used to ring are mostly all passed now. Even the man the who answered the phone is gone. As well as the landline. Who even has one anymore? The weather was harsher those first years when I moved here. This year has proven to be yet another. Bitter cold, wind, and snow that swirls around to blind you. Maybe it is just my mood, maybe I have not noticed it in the last few years. I remember one year my Dad going outside to measure the snowfall as if to prove to his friends that it had snowed here.
On Wednesday mornings if it had in fact snowed Dad would tell Richie (his best friend), all about it. Richie would laugh as Long Island was not getting that kind of snow and if it did then Richie and Diane would be going somewhere warm to get away from it. I wondered why my Dad never wanted to move South, even for the Winter. I would think that he would have liked to be able to swim in a pool, or just be outside with a thin jacket. Especially because as a mail carrier for first career he was outside and delivering mail on foot. He had a walking route. Second time around he was a school bus driver, and driving one of those old tin cans was like being in a refrigerator for most of the morning. He loved it when he and his wife lived in San Diego for a few years. He loved to be able to wear a light jacket in the morning to work and then swim by 10 am in the gorgeous sunshine. But when I brought up going somewhere warm for the Winter, he had no inclination to do so.
But if I said, “Hey want to go for a ride?” He would be outside and ready in minutes. He loved going for a ride, and exploring roads that he had never been before. When he had stopped driving or allowed me to drive, he was like a little kid looking all around, and pointing to trees or mountains. He could never get over the beauty in Upstate New York. He was mesmerized by it. He used to love to say how blessed we were that we get to live up here. The Spring after hard long Winters were equally amazing, and the Summers are nice but the Fall! The Fall is where God’s artistry shows up in the colors of the leaves changing, and the glow it makes on the mountain sides. The morning light coming up over the mountain is magical. I could take a picture every day from the porch and you would never be able to find one picture that is exactly the same.
The plows are now rumbling through town, leaving behind dirt and salt on the roadways. What was picturesque just moments ago now looks like roads full of mud and slush. The snow is starting to fall softer, with smaller flakes, still swirling as it falls. The squall seems to have passed, for now that is. The dog is begging to go out, I think he knows that it really snowed quite a bit since he was last out a couple of hours ago. To get him to come back after playing in the snow, is a feat in itself. I have never seen a dog jump and then lay down in the snow before. Well, maybe in a Hallmark movie but this dog goes nuts for snow. The cars have returned to their normal speed coming through town, which means that they are speeding again. Tractor trailers, cars, trucks no one paying any attention to the speed limit signs for at least 1/2 a mile before they come to the school zone, and that is even iffy if that slows them down. The snow is getting finer and the weather alerts are now saying that the snow will be stopping soon but the wind advisories are in effect till this evening. Now the decision has to be made. Do I clean off the car and try to head to OT hoping that my path will be clear. Or do I reschedule my appointment for another day this week?
50 minutes is up and almost 900 words have come from my head to the screen. Time to flow out of here for now. Happy Tuesday!