January 7, 2024
By Arthur H. Gunther III
There is snow, and there is snow. All relative to where you live and how each storm compares to the previous one. Like life.
In my region of the globe, what we used to call “upstate New York” until the downstate from Battery Park on up in Gotham’s boroughs began moving north, snowfall was once more frequent and in higher amounts. Roads were left with an inch or so of the white stuff so that metal chains on vehicle tires could grab. Schools did close, contrary to modern-day claims from oldsters that “In my day, we walked six miles in deep snow to school.” Perhaps in the pot-belly stove, one-room schoolhouse days but not in 1950s “upstate.”
This morning as I write, the sun not yet up, there is just about two inches of white in a wet mix – temperature now 34 degrees – while a “nor’easter” of 5-12 inches had been hyped online and on radio/tv broadcasts for almost a week.
Now, forecasting is not a slam-dunk, so allow for changes, but to hype to the point of batting down the hatches is the other side of an unbalanced equation. Seems like almost everything these days – government, society, awful politics.
Snow is relative. It is beautiful and dangerous, and that is also in the human equation.
I hope people move about safely; that youth will have a ball; and that the winter wonderland that was once part of the holiday setting can be enjoyed even after the fact.
The writer is a retired newspaperman.
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‘IN SNOW’/gunther