Storm of the century
If you’re reading this week’s column I can only assume you survived the recent storm. Mother Nature sure does have a sense of humor doesn’t she? Just when you get the patio furniture out and put away the skis she dumps a boatload of snow on us. I have always warned people you are never out of the woods around these parts where winter is concerned until April Fool’s Day and even then you might get a surprise. I remember Niska Day being canceled years ago in Niskayuna because of an unexpected snow storm in May. You can’t run the Tilt-A-Whirl when it’s covered in slush.
Being a TV anchor I find covering bad weather is much easier than when I was a reporter who had to leave the building. In fact I’m convinced most people give up field reporting for the anchor desk simply because of the weather. When you sit in the heated or air conditioned television studio you don’t have to stand outside in a blizzard in March or sweat to death in August.
I remember once, about 25 years ago, I was sent to cover a story in Amsterdam on a night when the wind chill was about 30 below zero. I thought I was speaking clearly but my boss later told me I sounded like I was drunk or someone had hit me in the head with a shovel because I was having trouble forming my words. My lips were that numb.
A year later when a snow storm was approaching I wrote a column in this very newspaper mocking the local media coverage of these often minor storms. I made my column a parody where a reporter named “Blow Dry Bill” stood at Exit 24 of the Thruway and told viewers to stay at home because they could never get by the one, two, three cars behind him waiting for toll tickets. I then had the fictitious TV anchor toss to a reporter named Suzy Hardbody (or some other silly name) who was standing by at the supermarket where people were stocking up on 16 gallons of milk and 44 loaves of bread in anticipation of the four inches of snow the meteorologist were predicting.
I thought the column was hilarious but I remember the face on my boss’s secretary Sue when I sauntered in the door for work. I said, “What?” and she said, “Your column, he’s not pleased.” The gist of the conversation, and when I say conversation I mean him yelling and me nodding, was that I was biting the hand that fed me and mocking my profession. My response, “Yeah but it was funny” was not the retort he was hoping for.
It wasn’t the only time I got yelled at over storm coverage. Once they sent me to do a story on people “preparing for the storm” and I stopped by a local Price Chopper where it was like a scene from the movie “The Purge.” People stocking up as if they’d be snowbound for a month so I thought it would be fun to share a little of that Gray Irish wit. Viewers at home saw me pop up at the end of the story pushing a cart filled with nothing but Grandma Brown’s baked beans. I said, “As for me when I’m going to be snowed in for a week I like to stock up on 50 cans of beans and one can of Glade air freshener. Yum, mountain pine scent.” Again I thought I was hilarious but the boss thought it was sophomoric or whatever is more juvenile than that. Is there such a thing as “freshmoric”?
Everyone was shocked when we got smacked with that monster storm last week but I was not. I’ve lived here my whole life and when it comes to bad weather the butcher’s bill is always due. You rarely get away with two winter’s in a row of mild weather. I tell people all the time that things always balance out here. If you had a cool rainy summer one season when make plans to put in the pool because the next summer will be a scorcher. Winter is the same way.
I like it when we get a taste of all four seasons. Even in a cold hard winter you have to remember that there are people who make their livelihood on the snow; plow guys, ski resorts, people who sell those little huts the ice fishermen live in on the lake. Now that we’ve survived the recent storm take solace in the fact that the calendar is on your side. Before you know it the golf clubs will be out and you’ll be walking at The Crossings.
As silly as it sounds I’m convinced the hard winters here toughen us up for the rest of life.
They also make you appreciate those perfect summer days. So tough it out amigo and this July when you’re sitting with your toes in the water and the warm sun on your face you can say without reservation, “I earned this.”