What Winter ?

Thoughts While Enjoying A 2nd Cup of Coffee

Feb. 1st, 2016

“What Winter?”

My snowbird friends have been emailing me lately, and they’ve been asking, “How’s your winter going?” My reply has been, “What winter?”

So far (knock on wood) we’ve haven’t had very much to “crow about”. We’ve had only 15 inches of total snowfall (we usually have 41 inches by now), and our average weekly temperatures have been 10 degrees higher than normal. We wish all our winters could be this mild.

Not so for our friends in the Mid-Atlantic states. They got hit with Winter Storm Jonas, and it was officially recorded as a blizzard. Most major cities from Washington, DC to New York City had either their highest snowfall ever, or the 2^nd highest.

I feel very badly for them, but when we get that much snow here in Maine (which we did last winter), I have to admit we have two distinct advantages over them. 1) We have LOTS of equipment to plow and remove it. 2) We have the ROOM to put it somewhere.

In big cities, you certainly can’t drive with 24-30 inches of white stuff on your street. When the plow truck comes by, where does it go? Onto the sidewalk? You don’t really want it there. In everyone’s driveway? – nope, not there either. You get the idea. 

The good news is that eventually the temperatures will soar, and the snow will melt. Unfortunately, last year, Boston had so much snow that the last pile of snow didn’t melt until June… UGH!

Meanwhile, spring will eventually come,  and then summer will arrive. Along with summer will come a whole flock of tourists – some old, some new. This year, those vacationing in our fine state from New York to Washington will be telling us their stories about the harsh winter. Usually it’s the other way around.

This summer, if we Mainers try to play a game of “Can You Top This” with them, we will surely lose. For one summer, we will have to sit back and do the “listening”, instead of the reverse.

But…. I may be able to top them.

It didn’t happen to me, but it did to a radio technician for  “TheTony Kornheiser Show”.

Mr, Tony, as he is affectionately called, is a 67-year old former sportswriter for the Washington Post. He hosts his own radio show every weekday from 10:00 am to noon. Thanks to the wonders of internet radio, I’m able to listen to him every day on ESPN-980 in Washington.

When Kevin Sheehan, the weatherman for “The Tony Kornheiser Show”, forecast 30 inches of snow, Mr. Tony nervously told his DC audience, “Oh my God, we’re all going to die. We can’t handle that much snow.” Mr. Tony, however, mellowed out when he went off the air, calmly walked across the street and checked into the Mayflower Hotel for 4 days. Good move.

His radio technician, (I think it was Nigel), didn’t fare so well. In what should have been a smart move, Nigel arranged to car pool with a friend who had a 4-wheel drive, SUV. Upon leaving the studio on the day the storm began, he felt he was in good shape with only 3-4 inches on the ground at the time.

To get to Nigel’s house, you have to go down a hill, and then up another hill. When they reached the first hill, there was a car, broadside, at the bottom of the hill. They stopped, examined the situation, and concluded they had enough room to get around the car sitting broadside. 

They inched their way down the hill. Well, things didn’t go as planned, and as many Mainers have experienced, half-way down, ice took over, and the 4-wheel drive became useless. They began skidding broadside, down the hill. The women in the car at the bottom jumped out, put both hands in front of her and shouted, “Stop your car! Stop your car!”. Nigel, ever quick to respond, rolled down his window and shouted back, “We can’t stop. We can’t stop”.

As they neared the bottom, not going very fast because it was a small hill, they bumped the woman’s car and gave it a slight dent. She went ballistic. “You’ve ruined my car. I’ll have to get a new one. You awful person. Why didn’t you stop when I told you to?”

Well, Nigel and his friend remained cool, and ascertained the young woman was a consulate member from Ecuador. She had never seen snow in her lifetime.

They calmly explained the car was not badly damaged, and despite it being a pain-in-the-butt to go to a body shop for repairs, the dent would be easily taken care of. They then inquired how she became positioned, broadside, at the bottom of the hill.

“Well,” she replied, “it’s not my fault. The car broke. I was going up the hill, and half way up the car broke. It just stopped going. The engine was running, and I even had the gas pedal pressed all the way to the floor, but the car wasn’t moving”. She continued, “After a while the transmission broke, and the car slid backwards, down the hill.”.

Nigel then asked how far away she lived. She pointed to the driveway across the street. Nigel then asked for her keys, got into the car, started it up, turned it slowly around, and drove it into her driveway. “You fixed it”, she exclaimed. “How did you do that?”

Well, Nigel, and those of us who regularly drive in winter weather, know very well the car was never “broken”. Nobody is telling the consulate from Ecuador, because we are all trying too hard to keep from laughing. 

So, this summer, when the Mid-Atlantic folks start telling me their tales of woe for this winter, this will be my “Can You Top This” story.

I think I’ll win. Every time.