What the heck, man? What sort of crackhead tardo winter is this? It was like 55 degrees out this past weekend! Listen, I’m willing to accept that around here, we rarely get snow on Christmas (although for the past few years in a row, we’ve gotten snow BEFORE Christmas, which has been weirding me out). But if it can’t snow on Christmas, it oughta snow on my birthday. Or at least be what I colloquially refer to as “balls cold,” meaning very very cold. And last weekend was like late April up in this piece. It made me sad in my bowels.
This morning when I awoke, at least there was some frost on the ground. I think this is maybe the 2nd frost of the new year. That is flat out redickerous, and simply lame beyond all previous lame-ity.
In hopes that Ol’ Man Winter (distantly related by marriage to Ol’ Man River) might make an appearance, I’m going to list some of my favorite winters of the past:
- January, 1978: I am born during a large blizzard. I don’t know a lot of details, but it must have been AWESOME.
- 1994: Freezing rain shuts down New Castle County’s schools for an entire week (as I recall). I spend the entire week at Josh Lewis’s house, because his neighborhood actually has hills, and we made use of various Radios Flyer and toboggans and the like. Usually we would get so soaked with wet snow that I would end up wearing a pair of Josh’s pants and some of his socks. You definitely wanted to know that.
- 1996: In a similar situation, sleet and snow shuts down most of Delaware’s schools for a week straight. I spend the week with the future HW in Stefanie Bennett’s basement, uh, watching movies. Yeah. That’s the ticket. We were WATCHING MOVIES.
- February, 2003: Massive blizzard dumps about 2 feet of snow on northern Delaware and the surrounding environments. The Governor proclaims (is that the right word? Probably not) a state of emergency, and shuts the schools for a week. My wife and inlaws and I are stuck in Dallas for two days, trying to find a flight home. We spend the bulk of those two days in a hotel bar. Finally we manage to make our way back, and my truck gets stuck in the snow in my driveway. I skip work for a couple days so I can shovel roughly 3 tons of snow off my driveway, and then a couple more days so I can learn to walk again.
Clearly, I dig me some snow. So when, in the middle of January, it freakin’ RAINS, I get bitter and angry.
I wonder what the weather’s supposed to be like this weekend…oh, dang.
Somehow I recall getting more like two weeks off in the 93 or 94 era….maybe it’s cause I was young and stupid, as opposed to now, when i’m old and stupidER.
To clarify, you were actually born the day after the blizzard! On January 20th, as we were watching the snow pile up around Media, PA, I was much afeared (interesting word, here) that yer mom was going to go into labor. Since the firehouse was right around the corner, I figured in an emergency they could take us to hospital (intentional British usage here) in a fire truck, which I thought might have been exceedingly cool. By the next morning, things had cleared up and we had no trouble getting to hospital. The nurses all said that any number of women had been panicked by the storm and went into labor, presumably having gotten to hospital in a parade of fire trucks. Yer mom, of course, doesn’t stoop to such human failings as panic, and wouldn’t have been pleased at the fire truck escapade anyway; would’ve mussed her hair, y’know.
JDAU
I believe the ’93 storm rocked so incredibly because for the BHSers (that’s Brandy&wine ‘We gon’ git you’ High School) after the week off the pipes burst (or possibly the water heater, or possibly a giant rat with a grenade – you never know at BHS) so we got an additional cupla days off that we did not have to make up at the end of the year. I think Smith and I set a record for number of NHL ‘9x games played on a Sega Genesis that week+.