Well, in a way, this is kind of a dangerous post. I mean, the more astute of you will put pencil to paper and one of my most closely-guarded non-secrets will be exposed. But, in the interest of responsible journalism, that is a risk I have decided to accept.
I will spare you the details of the infamous blizzard. Most likely you were either there or you have heard about it. The executive summary is that on the morning of January 26, 1978 it started to snow . And it just never stopped. Estimates of the snowfall range from 36 inches to 42 inches. I have heard that the storm produced one of the lowest barometric pressures ever recorded in these parts. Some say it was like a mid-winter, inland hurricane. What follows is an account of how I rode out the storm.
***************
The Blizzard of ’78 brought both bad news and good news for me. The bad news is that, like so many others, I was stuck at work for several days. How many days, I cannot remember. I suspect that thirty years blurs some parts of everyone’s memory. But I know it was at least three days and maybe as many as four or five. The good news is that at the time I was managing a motel, the old Howard Johnson on the corner of Cleveland Rd and then US 31 on the space presently occupied by the Comfort Suites. If one had to be snowed in at work they would be hard-pressed to find a better place to be marooned. I had a bed, a hot shower, a color TV and a restaurant and bar were right next door.
A grand total of five employees managed to make it in the day that the snow started falling. Actually, I think two of us – the night auditor and I – were simply unable to leave, but the net effect was the same. As luck would have it, three of us were able to run the front desk, and so we took turns in the office on 8-hour shifts. In addition, two high school boys who lived nearby swam through the chest-high drifts to come in as well. They kept the laundry going and performed whatever menial tasks had to be done. About the second day, one of them braved the drifts to reach a drug store in the North Village Mall where he bought toothbrushes and shaving supplies and whatever else we absolutely needed that we could not find in our storerooms. (In the spirit of hospitality, the young man informed the girl at the register that there would be a party in his room at the motel later that evening and that she was invited. She nearly accepted, but when she asked who would be there, he replied, "So far, just you.")
Needless to say, the guests staying at the motel were also unable to leave. Amazingly, they were very good sports about the hardships. The weather definitely brought out the best in them and in us. We were unable to provide maid service, but we did manage to keep them stocked with clean towels, soap and other basic necessities. A pot of coffee perked around the clock in our office, and several of our guests sat in the lobby drinking coffee and passing the time. About the third day, some of them even decided to try to dig out despite the fact that there was nowhere to go even if they did manage to escape the parking lot. We gave them what shovels we had and they gladly we nt to work. However, that operation was suspended when one of them hit something hard while digging only to discover that he was standing on top of a compact car that had been completely buried by the blizzard.
The snow on US 31 was completely impassable. Only snowmobiles and skiers were able to negotiate the depth of the snow. There were no 4-wheel drives and no plows. Just snow. Word got out that the Ramada Inn across the street had opened up a huge buffet at a very low price. My memory is failing me once again here, but it may have even been free. I am not sure about that. Because Ramada Inn was a larger and much busier place than Howard Johnson, they had a substantial inventory of food that was in danger of spoiling. They decided that virtually giving it away was preferable to simply t hrowing it out. I do know that some of us, traveling in teams as if on an Alpine adventure, made the long slow journey across the street to take advantage of their generous offer.
Finally, like the ever-repeating day in the movie “Groundhog Day,” it just ended. The snow stopped, plows cleared parts of 31, people found their cars, others trickled back to work and life eventually returned to near normal. The blizzard was over, but the legend had just begun.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Winter Lies
When folks who live up North fantasize about moving somewhere warmer, they frequently come up with the lame excuse, “but I would miss the changing seasons.” Do not count me in that group. I have never been much of a fan of winter. In fact, I really, really dislike it. Always have. I often have told the story of being about 5 years old and going outside to shovel snow with my Dad. When I found out we were only going to do the sidewalks, I got mad and went inside. I thought we were going to get rid of ALL the snow. No such luck. In fact, my favorite thing to do during the winter is to wait for spring. John Donne would be proud of me.
As I drove into my garage this morning it occurred to me that winter is a great time to deceive ourselves with grandiose plans for Spring. I looked around the garage and quickly took note of some of the things I would do “when things warm up a bit.” It is a brand new garage, in need of some homey touches, like a whole string of old Kentucky flags hanging from the first rafter near the rear wall. I can do that. And, maybe that will even get done. Other plans are on shakier ground.
Winter lies are not exactly like New Year’s Resolutions. The resolutions are more ritualistic than simple winter lies. Resolutions are more like goals that we will TRY to attain. Winter lies are self-deceptions that we really believe, almost. Here are some of mine.
This spring, I am going to fill in some of the holes and indentations made in my yard by burrowing animals. It is almost dangerous to mow my grass in certain areas because of the holes that lurk in the yard waiting to grab an unsuspecting ankle. So, this spring, I will take care of that.
And, I might start running again. I used to run a lot and was actually quite good at it. Sure, I am 30 pounds heavier now and every time I have tried running in the past 10 years I have either torn or pulled a calf muscle. But, if I work out this winter – and I have been – and stretch my calf muscles everyday – I started today – maybe I can get back into running. And, if I somehow fail at that, at least I can bike more. Biking will improve my health, tone my body, save money on gas and reduce the size of my carbon footprint. Plus, since I do not currently own a working bicycle, buying one will also help bolster the sagging economy.
My golf game also needs attention. On the cold, cold days I watch golf on TV and suddenly I gain all sorts of insights into my problems. I now KNOW why I cannot hit a decent 6-iron on a par-3 with any degree of consistency. So, if I can devote just one hour a week to practice, I think I can shave enough strokes off of my game to be consistently mediocre. And that would be a very nice improvement indeed.
You know, it might just be easier to move to a warmer climate. Then, I would not have all this time to think about what I will do when it warms up a little. But then, I’d miss the seasons.
As I drove into my garage this morning it occurred to me that winter is a great time to deceive ourselves with grandiose plans for Spring. I looked around the garage and quickly took note of some of the things I would do “when things warm up a bit.” It is a brand new garage, in need of some homey touches, like a whole string of old Kentucky flags hanging from the first rafter near the rear wall. I can do that. And, maybe that will even get done. Other plans are on shakier ground.
Winter lies are not exactly like New Year’s Resolutions. The resolutions are more ritualistic than simple winter lies. Resolutions are more like goals that we will TRY to attain. Winter lies are self-deceptions that we really believe, almost. Here are some of mine.
This spring, I am going to fill in some of the holes and indentations made in my yard by burrowing animals. It is almost dangerous to mow my grass in certain areas because of the holes that lurk in the yard waiting to grab an unsuspecting ankle. So, this spring, I will take care of that.
And, I might start running again. I used to run a lot and was actually quite good at it. Sure, I am 30 pounds heavier now and every time I have tried running in the past 10 years I have either torn or pulled a calf muscle. But, if I work out this winter – and I have been – and stretch my calf muscles everyday – I started today – maybe I can get back into running. And, if I somehow fail at that, at least I can bike more. Biking will improve my health, tone my body, save money on gas and reduce the size of my carbon footprint. Plus, since I do not currently own a working bicycle, buying one will also help bolster the sagging economy.
My golf game also needs attention. On the cold, cold days I watch golf on TV and suddenly I gain all sorts of insights into my problems. I now KNOW why I cannot hit a decent 6-iron on a par-3 with any degree of consistency. So, if I can devote just one hour a week to practice, I think I can shave enough strokes off of my game to be consistently mediocre. And that would be a very nice improvement indeed.
You know, it might just be easier to move to a warmer climate. Then, I would not have all this time to think about what I will do when it warms up a little. But then, I’d miss the seasons.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Feeding Stray Animals
Those who know a lot more about animals than I do tell us that one of the worst things we can do for the “wild” version of our furry, or feathered, friends is to feed them. Our version of their diets may not be the best for them and, even if we carefully select the proper foods, we can weaken their ability to forage for themselves and make them unusually dependent upon us for food and ultimately, for survival. Unfortunately, I guess I will have to file that information away under the heading of “good advice that I have ignored.”
While I actually have been the official caretaker of only 5 cats in my life – I will not use the word “owned” – I have been the unofficial benefactor of several more critters, both domestic and wild. In the mid 1990s I lived at an apartment complex that did not allow pets. But when a stray cat appeared on my patio, I put out food for it. The next night, the cat appeared again. And then the next, and then the next. Suddenly, I was feeding the stray every night. The cat would show up for dinner every night, right after sundown. In the winter, it would show up at 5:30 or 6:00 pm. In the summer, dinner would wait until 9:00 pm.
I named the cat Hobo, because of its shameless willingness to accept my handouts. Someone told me that once you name an animal, it is yours. Not true. Not even close to being true. I never got anywhere near Hobo, and it was only after she showed up with a kitten one night that I decided she must be a she.
I remember sitting at the table in my apartment’s dining room one winter evening eating dinner and looking out the sliding glass doors of my patio. When my eyes finally focused, there was Hobo, staring in at me, wondering why her dinner was late. In the coldest part of winter I made a makeshift house out of cardboard boxes and lined the boxes with a blanket to try to provide Hobo with some shelter from the wind and the cold. I would warm a mixture of water and milk for her and once I even made her a chicken potpie, which she devoured. But she almost never used the house I built for her.
This went on for about 15 months. When I moved out of the apartment, Hobo was left to fend for herself. That concerned me – a LOT. But then, one night at the store I ran into a former neighbor of mine from the apartment complex and she told me that they were feeding my cat. So, I allowed myself to think that Hobo would be OK, knowing full-well that was probably not the case.
Since then, I have fed birds and squirrels and rabbits in my yard. I eat at least 5 apples each week, and for the past 10 years I have been tossing my apple cores into the backyard. Not one of them is still around. I had a very large tree on the side of my house, and until I had to have the tree removed this past Fall, I would place an apple core on a low fork in the tree. It never last more than an hour or two before some hungry squirrel would scurry down the tree and grab it.
Finally, in early September, I guess, I began feeding another stray cat. Like Hobo, this cat would show up right after dark each night, eat her fill – I THINK she was a she – and then leave. After much internal debate, I named this latest moocher Sundown. I was actually going to name her Mooch, but that name was already taken.
Well, about 6 weeks ago – sometime in mid-November, I guess, I looked out and saw Sundown chowing down to her evening treat. As I watched her, I thought to myself, “Wow, that kitty is really getting chubby.” I turned on the lights to get a better look at her and discovered that kitty was not a kitty at all, but a opossum! And, this opossum seemed to LOVE cat food. My first inclination was to shoo her away, which I did. But, she came back about 30 minutes later, apparently deciding that the lure of the cat food was greater than any fear she had of me. For a while, her persistence irked me, but then I thought, “Oh well, all God’s creatures have to eat, I guess.”
While I actually have been the official caretaker of only 5 cats in my life – I will not use the word “owned” – I have been the unofficial benefactor of several more critters, both domestic and wild. In the mid 1990s I lived at an apartment complex that did not allow pets. But when a stray cat appeared on my patio, I put out food for it. The next night, the cat appeared again. And then the next, and then the next. Suddenly, I was feeding the stray every night. The cat would show up for dinner every night, right after sundown. In the winter, it would show up at 5:30 or 6:00 pm. In the summer, dinner would wait until 9:00 pm.
I named the cat Hobo, because of its shameless willingness to accept my handouts. Someone told me that once you name an animal, it is yours. Not true. Not even close to being true. I never got anywhere near Hobo, and it was only after she showed up with a kitten one night that I decided she must be a she.
I remember sitting at the table in my apartment’s dining room one winter evening eating dinner and looking out the sliding glass doors of my patio. When my eyes finally focused, there was Hobo, staring in at me, wondering why her dinner was late. In the coldest part of winter I made a makeshift house out of cardboard boxes and lined the boxes with a blanket to try to provide Hobo with some shelter from the wind and the cold. I would warm a mixture of water and milk for her and once I even made her a chicken potpie, which she devoured. But she almost never used the house I built for her.
This went on for about 15 months. When I moved out of the apartment, Hobo was left to fend for herself. That concerned me – a LOT. But then, one night at the store I ran into a former neighbor of mine from the apartment complex and she told me that they were feeding my cat. So, I allowed myself to think that Hobo would be OK, knowing full-well that was probably not the case.
Since then, I have fed birds and squirrels and rabbits in my yard. I eat at least 5 apples each week, and for the past 10 years I have been tossing my apple cores into the backyard. Not one of them is still around. I had a very large tree on the side of my house, and until I had to have the tree removed this past Fall, I would place an apple core on a low fork in the tree. It never last more than an hour or two before some hungry squirrel would scurry down the tree and grab it.
Finally, in early September, I guess, I began feeding another stray cat. Like Hobo, this cat would show up right after dark each night, eat her fill – I THINK she was a she – and then leave. After much internal debate, I named this latest moocher Sundown. I was actually going to name her Mooch, but that name was already taken.
Well, about 6 weeks ago – sometime in mid-November, I guess, I looked out and saw Sundown chowing down to her evening treat. As I watched her, I thought to myself, “Wow, that kitty is really getting chubby.” I turned on the lights to get a better look at her and discovered that kitty was not a kitty at all, but a opossum! And, this opossum seemed to LOVE cat food. My first inclination was to shoo her away, which I did. But, she came back about 30 minutes later, apparently deciding that the lure of the cat food was greater than any fear she had of me. For a while, her persistence irked me, but then I thought, “Oh well, all God’s creatures have to eat, I guess.”
For about a month, the opossum -- whom I have since named “Porky” -- and Sundown co-existed pretty well. Usually, they would take turns. Sundown would come early in the evening and Porky a little later. Unlike Porky, Sundown never ate everything, so there was always something left over for Porky. Once, they showed up at the same time, with Porky eating a discarded apple while Sundown ate the cat food.
It now has been a couple of weeks, at least, since I have seen Sundown. The story I am telling myself is that she was not as wild as I imagined and that her official caretaker has taken her in during the worst of the winter weather. Deep down inside I know the odds of that being the truth are probably less than 50-50, but it is amazing how convincing we can be when lying to ourselves. Meanwhile, Porky continues to show up every evening. Last night, I even managed to get a picture of her. She sat still for the first couple of shots, but after five flashes of light, she decided that was too much and took off back into the hedges. But, once again, she was back in about a half an hour to finish off the rest of her dinner.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Getting Started
Well, it seems that everyone’s doing it, and so on this New Years Day, 2008, I am thinking it is as good a time as any for me to start doing it, too. Blogging, that is. I have several friends with interesting blogs and one of them told me how to get started, so, here goes.
I discovered that the first step to starting a blog is to name it. And that, for me, can be a tricky, almost stifling, task. It would be easier, I suspect, if there was some purpose or theme to this anticipated endeavor, but, alas, there is not. So, what to call it?
In giving this some serious thought, I turned first to the world of literature. I mean, literature is something that I know a little about and furthermore, I know that allusion can be a very powerful tool. A skillful use of allusion is an efficient way to say in a few words white might otherwise require a thousand words. So, what to use?
It seems that opening lines get most of the attention in literature. Every High School student knows, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Most will recognize “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.” J. D Salinger borrows loosely from Twain with “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” Whew, that’s a mouthful. Herman Melville was more efficient: “Call me Ishmael.”
But, immediately two problems arise. First, I do not see any appropriate allusions in lines like these and, perhaps more importantly, I have always been a closing line kind of guy. If a story has a great closing line, I can frequently ignore any shortcomings that may have lead up to it. So, I flipped quickly through my mental index box looking for great closing lines.
The first that came to mind was one of my all-time favorites from Dostoyevsky’s classic story, “White Nights.” It helped that my brother was reading this story just a week or so ago. I love the ending: “My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn’t that enough for a whole lifetime?” So, I thought I would call this blog “Moments of Bliss.” That way, I would make it a kind of upbeat thing. But, truth be known, that just isn’t me. So, the search continues.
Next, I turned to one of my favorite writers. F. Scott Fitzgerald. One of the things I love about Fitzgerald is the way he ends his stories. He has GREAT closing lines. To this day – I mean literally to THIS day – I cannot read the last three paragraphs of “Winter Dreams” without choking up just a little. Or how about “The Sensible Thing”: “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.” Then there is the last line of “Absolution”, which was actually a preamble to “The Great Gatsby” and eventually discarded in the final edit: “It would be night in three hours, and all along the land there would be these blonde Northern girls and the tall young men from the farms lying out beside the wheat under the moon.” “Under the Moon.” Now that’s not bad. I have always liked the moon and its various phases and it may take somewhat of a lunatic to write this anyway. But, no, I decided against that as well.
While still on the subject of Fitzgerald, his best known novel, “The Great Gatsby,” ends on what well may be the best-known closing line in all of American literature: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Now, that almost made it – “Boats Against the Current.” In fact, that is probably tied for the runner up in this one-man naming contest.
Tied? Tied with what? For that I turn to my favorite contemporary author, David Payne. His second novel, “Early From the Dance,” ends with Melvillian simplicity – “and that was the end of it, and the start of something else.” So, I almost called this blog “The Start of Something Else.” But, obviously, I did not.
If Fitzgerald has the most famous closing line in American Literature, then yours truly probably has the least famous line. But still, I liked it, and it would certainly fit this blog well. In the early 90s I wrote a long short story – maybe not quite a novella – called “A Love Once New” (a title which is itself an allusion that you should know). The last line in the story – “I dunno.”
So, where did I finally find the title for this blog? Actually, it was not from literature at all. And, I am not even sure that this is the correct source. But once again, back in the early 90s, a friend of mine -- Therese -- had a screen saver on her computer that always impressed me: “In a hundred years, it won’t matter at all. It barely matters now.” Wow!! What could be a more apt description of this blog – “It Barely Matters.”
This name has several advantages. First, I have no idea how this blog will evolve. Unlike some of my friends, such as Michelle, who have truly meaningful things happening on their sites, this site really doesn’t matter. Secondly, by my estimate, 49% of the things I could write about are way too personal to publish and another 49% are things nobody will care about. So, maybe, at best, 2% of this site may be interesting to someone. And finally, with a title like “Barely Matters” maybe someone surfing the net for porn will stumble upon this site by accident, thereby increasing my number of hits.
So, and this does matter – Happy New Year.
I discovered that the first step to starting a blog is to name it. And that, for me, can be a tricky, almost stifling, task. It would be easier, I suspect, if there was some purpose or theme to this anticipated endeavor, but, alas, there is not. So, what to call it?
In giving this some serious thought, I turned first to the world of literature. I mean, literature is something that I know a little about and furthermore, I know that allusion can be a very powerful tool. A skillful use of allusion is an efficient way to say in a few words white might otherwise require a thousand words. So, what to use?
It seems that opening lines get most of the attention in literature. Every High School student knows, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Most will recognize “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.” J. D Salinger borrows loosely from Twain with “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” Whew, that’s a mouthful. Herman Melville was more efficient: “Call me Ishmael.”
But, immediately two problems arise. First, I do not see any appropriate allusions in lines like these and, perhaps more importantly, I have always been a closing line kind of guy. If a story has a great closing line, I can frequently ignore any shortcomings that may have lead up to it. So, I flipped quickly through my mental index box looking for great closing lines.
The first that came to mind was one of my all-time favorites from Dostoyevsky’s classic story, “White Nights.” It helped that my brother was reading this story just a week or so ago. I love the ending: “My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn’t that enough for a whole lifetime?” So, I thought I would call this blog “Moments of Bliss.” That way, I would make it a kind of upbeat thing. But, truth be known, that just isn’t me. So, the search continues.
Next, I turned to one of my favorite writers. F. Scott Fitzgerald. One of the things I love about Fitzgerald is the way he ends his stories. He has GREAT closing lines. To this day – I mean literally to THIS day – I cannot read the last three paragraphs of “Winter Dreams” without choking up just a little. Or how about “The Sensible Thing”: “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.” Then there is the last line of “Absolution”, which was actually a preamble to “The Great Gatsby” and eventually discarded in the final edit: “It would be night in three hours, and all along the land there would be these blonde Northern girls and the tall young men from the farms lying out beside the wheat under the moon.” “Under the Moon.” Now that’s not bad. I have always liked the moon and its various phases and it may take somewhat of a lunatic to write this anyway. But, no, I decided against that as well.
While still on the subject of Fitzgerald, his best known novel, “The Great Gatsby,” ends on what well may be the best-known closing line in all of American literature: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Now, that almost made it – “Boats Against the Current.” In fact, that is probably tied for the runner up in this one-man naming contest.
Tied? Tied with what? For that I turn to my favorite contemporary author, David Payne. His second novel, “Early From the Dance,” ends with Melvillian simplicity – “and that was the end of it, and the start of something else.” So, I almost called this blog “The Start of Something Else.” But, obviously, I did not.
If Fitzgerald has the most famous closing line in American Literature, then yours truly probably has the least famous line. But still, I liked it, and it would certainly fit this blog well. In the early 90s I wrote a long short story – maybe not quite a novella – called “A Love Once New” (a title which is itself an allusion that you should know). The last line in the story – “I dunno.”
So, where did I finally find the title for this blog? Actually, it was not from literature at all. And, I am not even sure that this is the correct source. But once again, back in the early 90s, a friend of mine -- Therese -- had a screen saver on her computer that always impressed me: “In a hundred years, it won’t matter at all. It barely matters now.” Wow!! What could be a more apt description of this blog – “It Barely Matters.”
This name has several advantages. First, I have no idea how this blog will evolve. Unlike some of my friends, such as Michelle, who have truly meaningful things happening on their sites, this site really doesn’t matter. Secondly, by my estimate, 49% of the things I could write about are way too personal to publish and another 49% are things nobody will care about. So, maybe, at best, 2% of this site may be interesting to someone. And finally, with a title like “Barely Matters” maybe someone surfing the net for porn will stumble upon this site by accident, thereby increasing my number of hits.
So, and this does matter – Happy New Year.
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