Thoughts on Winter...

 

Inhabitants of Northwest Pennsylvania tend to think of winter as a normal part of it all.  We rarely shut down anything for snow- although ice is at times a bit of an issue. Only on rare occasions would we allow either to interfere with our plans. We move about our lives thankful that we do not have to deal with hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes or pineapple cyclones, but, I confess, we do snort laugh when TV weather people report 6 inches of the white stuff as paralyzing. We sympathize but ... that is a just past a mere dusting here. Actually we have a lot of different words to describe snow - probably because there is usually so much so often. We know it well. We make jokes about it and plod on.

When talking about snow, it is, in fairness, important to consider point of view. The headquarters for the National Weather Service is in Silver Springs, Maryland. The average snowfall there is about a foot spread out over an entire winter season. The headquarters for The Weather Channel is in Atlanta, Georgia. They had snow there on January 23, 1940. Both the NWS and the WC tend to foam and twitch at the mere thought of a couple of inches of snow and try to get people all wound up about it. Seriously what do they know about snow? They probably close schools in either of those places if there is one single snow flake in the air that melts before it hits the ground.  We laugh at them too … as they know basically nothing about "real" snow.  Talk to people in places like Buffalo, NY if you want to lean about real snow. Must mention at this point that my small town at times has the highest annual snowfall in the Commonwealth of PA – one year it was 115” above the national average.  Many years there is much more snow than that. Erie, Pa (about 35 miles away) had five feet in 36 hours a couple of years ago, and we still out snowed them that year. That was the year when Erie ran out of places to put the snow and people found themselves still digging out in April.  Seriously… (Well – that might be a slight exaggeration….)

Anyway -- we in Northwest Pennsylvania understand that not everyone is as used to dealing with snow as we are and – they don’t do it as well – lack of practice and proper equipment. We forget that there are people who do not know that studded snow tires or chains, long underwear, or boots with cleats even exist. I suppose we take a bit of pride in our knowledge of the ways of snow country and in the digging out of the "big coats" and trudging on. We always feel sorry for people who get dumped on who are not set up for it. Then again -- sometimes we make fun of people -- especially of snow birds… even though we know they do better in milder climes and are basically happy for them. (It’s okay to be wimpy. I get sick of mittens and boots too. By the way -- snow birds are people who escape the snow belt and head south for the warmth of sunshine ... aka wimps. I love them anyway.) My simple truth is that I hate hot weather.  I can always get warmer, but cannot always find a way to get cooler. Plus – I detest light weight clothes.  I am at my best when I layer and… I love thick socks. I have a lot of them. I pad around in them on a daily basis. I sometimes sleep in them on cold nights.  I buy boots in a bigger size so that my feet will slip in no matter how thick my socks are.  It’s that simple really. I am a cold weather person. That is one reason why I live here on purpose.  That and I like the people here -- also winter people for the most part, and the rest have most admirable gumption.

Even though it has been feebly snowing for a few days now as I write this, winter doesn’t really seem to have settled in yet. It is past due. We have had a couple of good storms with a few feet of snow each, but nothing is lasting very long.  It is like a broken promise really.  Winter is taking its time – sort of galumphing in and tripping along the way. We haven’t even had more than a few hours of  the blinding, yet beautiful winter whiteness of light reflecting off the snow. My Grandson has only been snowboarding maybe a dozen times, and it’s already the 2^nd week of January.  We feel cheated somehow in a rather twisted way and ... we keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. We live off the Great lakes -- in the Snow Belt.  We are ready and waiting.

The days are already getting longer.  It stays daylight now until around 5 PM and is inching toward later. Kids are now waiting for early morning school buses only about 15 - 30 minutes before the sun is actually up. My Granddaughter is just now beginning to walk to school in daylight. Soon we will be anticipating those aching yellow-greens of spring. Now those are greens -- so vivid that they hurt your eyes.  They shimmer.  Not sure if you have to live here to know what I mean, or perhaps we just appreciate it more after months of white, gray, black and the muddy brown of in betweens.  Perhaps it takes a while for our eyes to adjust to color. We sometimes go days without it. We take photographs and they look like they were taken in black and white mode ... but were not. Dreary always begins with a capital D here.

Ah, snow country in Northwest Pennsylvania.  Did I tell you that it is also cold and windy here?  We are on a first name basis with the wild chill factor if that tells you anything, and we sometimes have the kind of winds that make windows rattle in a most impressive way. I wish I owned stock in ChapStick. NWPA Winter...  It's not for the faint of heart. Bring it on. Let the fun begin.