This is what life is like when you endure winter in Southern California. Luckily, my past life has toughened me up for such dire weather conditions. After all, I grew up in Westchester, NY.
You may have seen the photo above before. But, nevertheless, here I am again. Enjoying the snow several decades ago. With a friend that was undoubtedly built by my dad. Even then, I had no patience when it came to artistic moments. I certainly couldn't have crafted a snowman.
Ah, how refreshing. How homespun. How cute.
And, then, a bunch of years later...
It's amazing how your perspective changes when you grow up in an area that endures snowflakes during the winter months.
When you're a kid, you live through the delight of the Christmas season just as winter sets in. Then, on January 2, you are likely headed back to jail AKA elementary school. And the prospect of time off, prior to the regularly scheduled Presidential birthdays in February, is totally dependent upon some low pressure systems meshing with some Canadian cold front. You'd anxiously await the weather report on the nightly news. You'd gladly switch over from the Three Stooges on WPIX Channel 11 to hear WCBS weatherlady Carol Reed tell you to "have a happy" and then announce the prospects of a blizzard within the next five days.
"70% chance of snow."
Hmmm, that's more than 50-50. I'll take it. I would immediately start to make plans about how late I would sleep in the morning.
Of course, school had to be officially cancelled first. And, in Mount Vernon, New York, which was just north of the Bronx/NYC line, that wasn't so easy. The New York City public school system was notoriously famous for not cancelling classes. It really had to be a dire emergency.
"Due to the plague of locusts, New York City public schools will open at 10AM this morning."
Mount Vernon didn't like to cancel if New York City stayed open. So, frequently, as the drifts piled up, we were screwed. Still, we had hope. If you knew that snow had fallen overnight, you would get up and prod your mother to tune to Westchester's official "school closing" radio station, WFAS-AM. I don't think anybody ever really listens to WFAS unless it's snowing. And you'd listen hopefully as the roll call of Westchester County school systems checking in.
"Mahopac schools closed."
Of course, they are. Mahopac is right next to Alaska, correct?
"Rye Country Day School closed."
That sounds like such a nice place to be educated. The Rye Country Day School. Mom, can we move please? Because they're closed today.
"White Plains schools closed."
Okay, gang, we're getting closer.
"Mount Vernon public schools............open."
F Me.
We never got a break.
Now there was a back-up alert system that we always hoped would prove those WFAS frauds wrong. The city of Mount Vernon had a set of loud fire whistles. If there was no school, the siren would go off at 7AM and 8AM. I would wait with baited breath. Nobody make a sound, please.
Most of the time...nothing.
But, there were those days where the whistle went off and I felt glorious. I also think they were going to use the same warning in the event of a nuclear attack so the last laugh could have been on me as I shimmied my way into my snow suit and/or a radioactive haze.
Not that my day was going to be completely full of leisure. Invariably, I would be invited outside to help my father shovel out the driveway. With the usual winter threat.
"Go help your father. Do you want him to die of a heart attack?"
Okay, got it.
I'd amble outside and then perform my usual snowstorm chore. I'd pretend to shovel. If it was windy, the white stuff would blow back into my face. Eventually, I had more snow on me than I had moved into a neat pile. Within fifteen minutes, the potential coronary victim that was my dad had seen enough.
"Go inside. You're just making a mess out here."
Okay, got it.
And that's how, every winter as a child, I managed to get out of shoveling snow. A wonderful system. And my father never did have that heart attack.
But, in retrospect, I probably could have used the practice. Because as glorious as snow days were when you're a youngster, your viewpoints changes when you're an adult.
You don't listen to the school closings on WFAS-AM.
You don't get to wait for a fire whistle.
Unless, it's fifteen inches or more, you don't get to stay home. You are expected to work.
So, you wake up in the AM and shovel out your car as you see in the photo above.
It all sucked.
At my very first solo apartment on North Broadway in Yonkers, just leaving the premises in the snow was an ordeal. First, you had to clean off the car. If I was smart the night before, I had already taken the brush, shovel, and ice scraper out of the trunk. Then you begin the process. If it was really early and nobody was outside yet, I would simply push the crap onto the car in the next space. Hell, he was a dirtbag anyway.
Now I had a real problem if there was a sheet of ice on the windshield. Those of you not familiar with frozen tundra-like conditions have no idea how you defrost your car window. To do it correctly, you ideally need to go out about a half-hour before you really want to leave. You sit in the car and turn on the defroster. And simply sit and wait.
Me? I had little patience. So I would try to help it along by spraying on the windshield washing liquid. That would help speed up the process momentarily.
Until that froze over even more. Before I knew it, my car window could have served as the arena for the Stanley Cup playoffs. And I never ever learned my lesson.
Of course, once you could see out your car window, you had to figure out a way to get up the huge slope of a driveway. On lots of winter mornings, there were cars literally lined up waiting to take their turn up Mount Kilimanjaro. People would rev their engines to get some momentum going and then start to speed up the driveway which had been barely cleaned.
Halfway up, you'd start to slide down.
Again.
Halfway up. Slide back down.
Again.
Halfway up. Slide back down.
Okay, if you failed the climb on the third attempt, common courtesy would be to step aside and let the next bozo try.
Halfway up. Slide back down.
Again.
Halfway up. Slide back down.
If somebody managed to keep going, everybody else would stand there perplexed trying to figure out how they did it. That and, also, cursing the bastard for his success.
Once I got up to the main thoroughfare of North Broadway, I wasn't nearly finished. I had to somehow maneuver my way gingerly down the mountains of Yonkers to the Metro North train station in Getty Square. Driving behind other idiots trying to do the same thing but with tires that had not been rotated or replaced in a decade.
The usual ten-minute drive to the train often took an hour on those mornings. And then, of course, you had no guarantee of transportation into Manhattan. You'd arrive triumphantly on the train platform only to hear the scratchy announcement over the public address system.
"The 7:55AM to Grand Central...has been cancelled...due to equipment trouble."
Okay, there was another one in ten minutes.
"The 8:05AM to Grand Central...has been cancelled...due to equipment trouble."
And fifteen minutes later...
"The 8:05AM to Grand Central...is running...fifteen minutes later."
Duh.
Admittedly, the Metro North railroad has gotten their act together in the past three decades. But, back in the 80s, you had a better chance of getting into the city if you waited for a sleigh to come by with Doctor Zhivago at the reins.
When you finally crawled into your office by 9:30AM or 10AM, you'd look around at complete emptiness. And wonder in amazement how you managed to get to work from Westchester County but the person who lives ten blocks away on 57th Street hadn't arrived yet.
Yeah, writing this piece has given me an epiphany.
I don't miss that weather at all. I am happy to spend the winter months in Los Angeles. Where a 20 percent chance of showers prompts a "storm watch" on local TV stations.
Good news. It's going to warm up to the 60s tomorrow. But we're on storm watch. Rain!
Dinner last night: Grilled knockwurst.
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