I know winter. I was born in the Midwest; cut my teeth surrounded by frozen walleye while my Father ice fished on Lake Winnebago. I lived in Oshkosh Wisconsin back when all they made were big, durable, unattractive overalls, and the workers were stout sturdy people who routinely chiseled six inches of ice off their windshields and battled eight-foot drifts to get into work each day. I’ve waited for school buses until my feet became frozen fleshy nubs, snot formed icicles on my upper lip, and wind chills threatened to remove parts of my face. But then I moved to the Northeast and discovered that there are two kinds of winter, winter in New England, and winter everywhere else.
We had arrived in New Hampshire last August, a time when pleasant breezes and tranquil summer nights can easily dupe the newly-arrived into a state of complacency. It was the best of times in New England. Fall was the finest in years, even locals were caught in inexcusable exclamations of awe. It only served to confirm our decision to move here. We had stumbled on nirvana. We gloated.
October rolled by, November ambled past, temps cooled, but nary a flake had fallen. Christmas neared, our town had a tree lighting ceremony and bonfire in mid-December and the season had not graced our little town with fluffy white down. The carolers sang without snow on their caps, the Christmas tree was lit without snow in its boughs. I wanted postcards! Eaves laden with snow, shop windows with real snow gathered in their corners, not sprayed on. I wanted my New England Christmas, I got rain.
Ice fishing shanties appeared on the lake in late December, but still no snow. But then in early January an ill wind blew down from the North, and knowing locals gave knowing nods, for they knew winter didn’t really start till January nor end till April.
I threw back the window sash one early January morning and found the season’s first snowfall covering our yard! Beautiful snow, hanging off our eaves, gracing our stonewall, filling the branches of evergreens to overflowing. My new shovel, with the sticker still on it, the one with the ergonomic handle that I spent extra for, that had languished all November and December in my garage, could now be employed for its singular purpose. I sprang out of bed, spry as a cat, threw on some essentials, and stepped outside.
The snow had laid a hush over the neighborhood, oh if only those carolers could come a caroling now. I seized the ergonomic handle of the shovel in one hand, “Come on darling, let’s see what yer made of.” She glided sublimely across the drive as only an ergonomic shovel with a sticker still on it could do, in no time at all the drive was as smooth as a whale’s belly. “Aye lass, I knew you had it in you, worth every penny you are.”
And it didn’t stop there, oh no no, come Tuesday another eight inches fell, and I took to the drive like Paul Bunyan takes to a mighty oak. Thursday four inches fell, then another two the following day, my shovel and I kept on top of it, building up waist-high mounds of snow on the sides of our drive. It was everything I pictured a New England winter to be. Kids sledding down the neighbor’s hillside yard, people walking, smiling, doffing caps, smoke wafting out of chimneys.
In late January things became a little more serious, something the weatherman referred to as a Nor’Easter wound up the coast. You know those snow globes that are filled with water with a mini North Pole village and fake snow that you shake around, now instead picture our little town in the globe and imagine the globe in the hands of a teen punk in juvie hall. Winds howled, branches fell, lights flickered, and snow flew - 25 inches by the time skies cleared. There’s only so much snow an ergonomic shovel can deal with and 25 inches is well well beyond that limit, oh I attempted it anyway, I thrashed around, stripped down to a sweat drenched tee-shirt, lashed out at the neighbor kids, and cleared about two shovel widths of snow in an hour before I decided, to call in Mr. Plow.
Mr. Plow isn’t a pleasant fellow. When you call his house you’ll invariably reach his wife who sounds every bit a booze-swilling cigarette hanging from her lips kind of gal. First you have to apologize for waking her up at 11am, then in a steady, yet confident voice, you’ll need to explain your dire situation, being sure to repeat your address as many times as possible. Be vigilant, in the end she’ll come around. Then at some indeterminate point in the future, Mr. Plow will arrive and create a scale model of the Himalayas right up against your garage door. When he comes to collect, pay him and smile, I’d sooner scale the Himalayas then stiff Mr. Plow, as I mentioned, he isn’t a pleasant fellow.
The snow through January and February was nothing if not constant. By late February, a jaunt to our backyard woodpile became a Louis and Clark adventure, requiring snowshoes and keen tracking skills to locate the woodpile (long since buried). I continued the shoveling brigade to the many smirks of my neighbors, who considered a snow blower to be the cornerstone of any snow removal arsenal. The mounds of snow on the sides of my drive had achieved eye level, and I developed a new snow removal technique, the shovel and hoist - a favorite among local Chiropractors.
My in-laws from Florida took much joy in comparing current conditions between Florida and New Hampshire, “Jack just finished a round of golf. It was 82.3 degrees today. What was it there?”
“Don’t know, but I found a frozen squirrel in our yard this morning.”
It wasn’t until early March that we were properly introduced to a Nor’Easter. Weather forecasters began prophesizing the storm almost a week in advance. It was to be the storm of the century (eighth one this century), the blizzard to rival the one in ’78. As the storm brewed, entire cities shut down, the Northeast became a ghost town, people boarded up windows along the coast, supplies disappeared off grocery store shelves, people huddled, and then exactly nothing happened. At least not when and where it was supposed to. The storm shifted, sparing New York City and Boston, but instead focusing it’s considerable attentions on small town New Hampshire. As the morning news shows ridiculed the storm that never was, I looked out my window to the storm that is, that was at the precise moment uprooting an 80 year-old tree in my neighbor’s yard and casting it across his driveway, the storm that was snowing over three inches an hour, the storm that left us with 35 inches of new snow and forced me to learn the delicate art of roof-top snow removal with a garden rake, the storm that required me, once again, to call in Mr. Plow.
New England is a place of many seasons, there’s your winter, then what’s known as frost heave season, followed by black ice season, which is the only time of year people are understanding when you fly into oncoming traffic. Then actual Spring itself rounds the bend, which promptly turns into mud season. They tell me next at bat is black fly season - which sounds like it’ll be time for me to move season, well before the humming black clouds herald in mosquito season.
Copyright 2000 Douglas S. Sassaman, http://CosmicBurp.com
About The Author:
Douglas Sassaman is a freelance writer, aspiring novelist, and self-described humorist (who some think should be self-committed). He writes the humor column, 'Life in the Cosmic-Burp' on the web at http://CosmicBurp.com.
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