Soapbox

In like a Lunatic

The traditional question is always, "Will March come in like a lion or a lamb?" This year it has come in like a lunatic.

A few days ago it was 60 degrees. I say this just to torture myself, as I look out at the snow blowing almost sideways past my window. They say it’s about done. Let’s hope so.
Friday morning I drove Katie in to school around 11:00 (it’s testing week, and she doesn’t have to take that test) and the snow, while micro-fine and fairly light seemed determined.

"I smell an early release" she said as I pulled up at the school.
"Listen Kate- call me when school lets out. I know I said it was OK, but if this keeps up, I don’t want you going out with your friends this afternoon."
A few hours later I was out front shoveling when Jason’s car pulled up into it’s traditional slot at the curb. I expected him to just let her out and scoot on home, but he stopped the car and they both got out.
"Oh my God!" Katie said as she approached me. "That was an adventure!"
"Are the roads bad?"
"Well, when you’re doing that pumping the brake thing," Jason said "…and you’re still sliding out into the intersection anyway… what should you do?"
"Pray, basically" I said. "Look, don’t try to drive home. Call your mom, and if she wants, I can drive you home."

After several conversations (that apparently involved discussion along the lines of "Since when does come straight home mean after you drop your girlfriend off at her house?") it was decided that Ted, who was leaving the office straightaway, would drive Jason home in his SUV. Then it took Ted about 90 minutes to make a 20 minute drive, and so it was that Jason became snowbound at his girlfriend’s house for the duration of the blizzard of 2008. This was a real hardship for them both, as you can imagine. I told his mother not to worry: he is safe and quite welcome, and we’ll all be fine as long as the cocoa holds out. Fortunately, with Steve off at school in Athens, we even have a spare bed (once I got all the ironing off of it).

Saturday morning the micro-snow of the day before was replaced with big, fat flakes, moving steadily in from west to east. The sidewalk that I had shoveled twice the day before was not only covered- it was gone. The cars were ghostly white lumps in the driveway.
I opened the refrigerator and cupboards and took stock. Bread, cheese, apples, frozen dinners galore…but I was snowbound with 2 teenagers and no junk food in the house. Oooh, and almost no milk, either. When the weather weenies had been predicting on Friday morning that the sky was falling, I had dismissed it as their usual hoo-hah and (unlike most of Columbus, no doubt) I had not rushed out to buy groceries and driveway salt. Then, overnight, the sky fell.

Who knew they’d be right for once?

"I’m going to the store to buy milk." I announced.
"What? You’re crazy!" Ted said.
"Don’t worry- I’ll walk. I’ll go to the Speedway at 161 and Maple Canyon. They’re probably open."
"It’s blizzarding. We don’t need milk that much. You could freeze!"
"I”ll be fine" I said.
Katie was up, and not expecting Jason to be functional for quite some time. "I’ll go with you" she decided.
"You’re both nuts" her father declared.
"It’ll be an adventure" she said, clearly a child after my own heart in some small way. She set out towels and some trial sized toiletries for Jason and we suited up. Knights preparing for the joust were no more carefully decked out than were we, preparing to do battle with a blizzard. We each took a small knapsack to put "supplies" in and, with chemical heat packs down our gloves as the final safeguard, we stepped out into the elements.

It really wasn’t too bad. After all, we were in residential Columbus Ohio, not out on the prairie, but it was a bit eerie with the streets so empty and quiet. We walked down the tire tracks in the middle of the street, since the sidewalks were over our boot tops in many places. It was tricky going- like walking in deep sand, but not that cold, and really, not that windy. As we walked we chatted, first about Katie’s college plans and the fact that the college she most wants (University of Chicago) doesn’t actually offer her major (Architectural engineering) and what she plans to do about that. In no time we approached the intersection with Route 161 and the Speedway station there.
Our neighborhood might seem almost deserted but the gas station was hopping. Cars were filling up at all the pumps, and more were waiting in line. As we watched a line of mail trucks left the post office across the street and headed out to fulfill their promise of "neither rain nor sleet" and try to get the mail out. Loud voices called our attention to the fact that a lot of cars were having trouble getting up the small incline that led to the intersection itself, and people were out and pushing in more than one spot. We watched for a minute, and then headed inside.

"Anything you want, Mommy will buy for you" I told Katie as she pushed her ski goggles up and looked around.
"Cool" she said and started filling her arms. I got a half gallon of milk and then perused the junk food. 2 teenagers, 2 days… plus I was going to need shoveling fuel myself….
$19.74 cents later we loaded up our backpacks and headed out again, secure in the knowledge that we had enough Pepsi, Fritos, doughnuts and Gatorade to last 36 hours. On the way home we stopped several times to help stranded motorists, the first stuck out front, trying to turn into the Speedway parking lot. As we pushed, I heard a familiar (and usually beloved, on days like this) sound and looked up to see a triumverate of snowplows moving down Route 161… and plowing all the cars and mail trucks struggling to get free at the intersection under 3 feet of snow! We laughed. After all, we were smart enough to walk!

We made it there and back in less than an hour, even with time out for pushing. Katie was right: it was an adventure! Next up: the driveway. I shoveled periodically throughout the day, but the snow was heavy and the drifts so daunting that even an enthusiastic shoveler like me was discouraged. Even the folks with snow blowers were having a rough time of it. Katie and Jason helped me  for a few minutes but were soon distracted by the idea of building a ramp at the top of our small hill, thereby providing extra speed for their sleds. (I had been hoping for some snow fort action like in days of old, but apparently that’s kid stuff.)

It’s getting dark now, and the snow is tapering off. Tomorrow I probably have to work, so I’ll have to finish off the driveway in the morning, and Jason will need to go home eventually, if just to get clean clothes. I’m sure he and Katie will have many more fond memories of this blizzard than I do of my blizzard of ’78, which I was just recalling a few short weeks ago.
My how time flies. Some things never change, though. Junk food is still absolutely required to make it through a blizzard.