“Oh,
the weather outside is frightful.” Throw
another log onto the fire. Thank
goodness spring is just around the corner, next week as a matter of fact, and
on my birthday of all things. I’ll be so
glad when the cold, snowy, sleety, icy weather is behind us for another year. This has been a winter that orthopedic
surgeons live for. For a while, I
thought that spring might come a little early this year. Then came the middle of February and
everything hit the skids. Snow and ice,
mainly slick, broken bone ice. I gave up
early trying to shovel my driveway. I
wish I had kept up with the number of times that I heard “whatever happened to
Global Warming?” And, “it could always
be worse; you might be living in Boston.”
Remarks like that are supposed to pep you up, I guess. We have already dismissed church on two
Sundays this year because of the weather
. Highly unusual, but necessary
to lessen the opportunity of someone slipping and breaking an arm or leg or
having a car accident. When I was a boy,
the unspoken rule in my family was that we went to church regardless of the
weather. Sometimes it was only us and
the preacher, but we did our spiritual duty.
I don’t recall anyone falling and we always made it home safely. Of course, you must remember that I was
brought up in the days when we walked to school five miles, barefoot through
eight inches of snow, uphill both ways (actually it was only four inches) so we
were well prepared for facing the elements on Sunday morning. Nowadays, with the accurate weather
forecasts, phone trees, radio newscasts and internet service, out congregation
can be advised well in advance about cancellations of church services or other
meetings. Maybe a little unusual winter,
but things could, of course, be worse, and they have been. For example, back in the winter of 1918, over
three feet of snow covered North Arkansas and the White River froze over. I have heard eyewitness accounts from my
parents that things got so bad during a six week period mourners were unable to
dig a grave to bury a loved one who had passed away. I remember the winter of 1951 when the
mercury descended to a minus 15. I read
somewhere that the all-time low for Arkansas is minus 22. Sounds more like Fairbanks than Calico Rock.
How about the ice storm of 2009. We were
still living in Missouri, but I heard things got pretty critical for a couple
of weeks. However, it has been a pretty
rough winter, especially during February, which I heard was the coldest 28 days
in over three decades. Every thirty
years is not too bad and it does give us
a little something different to talk about.
I have always had a hunch that the grocery store people are behind
scaring us with these predictions of huge snow amounts. Ever notice how milk and bread fly off the
grocery shelves when the “s” word is mentioned?
I brought this up recently to the new Harp’s manager, Nate, and he didn’t
deny it, so there just may be some truth to it.
The snowfall that we had last week was very beautiful and, thankfully,
it was mostly gone in a few days. I am
enjoying these 60 degree days. Let me
transition here and go to next week and spring and my birthday. Now I must insist, NO Gifts Please. March is birthday month for several members
of my family. Very often I go into a
deep depression for ten days after celebrating my birthday. You see, for that ten day period, I’m as old
as Harold Jeffery. Scary, isn’t it? Usually after March 30th, I
recover rapidly and everything returns to normal for another year. Anyway, goodbye old man winter. You were kinda hard on us this year so
remember to treat us a little kinder when you return in December. While I’m in a complaining mood, I find it
very aggravating to have to get out of
bed at 2 AM twice a year to reset my clocks, one hour forward in the spring and
one hour back in the fall. It messes up my metabolism and takes me about
six months to settle things down when I have to go through it again. We went for centuries without having to fool
with changing the time and I think we can do it again. What do you readers think?
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