2001-03-05
feeling kinda
sugar boy what you trying to do?
well, i told you i loved you
now what more can i do?
told you i loved you -
you beat my heart black and blue.
i told you i loved you
now what more can i do?
do you want me to lay down
and die for you?-- beth orton, off of Trailer Park
it's snowing here, and everyone has already gone home for the day, even though it's only lunchtime. apparently, this is shaping up to be a bad one. or, if you believe the hype, The Storm of the Century. um... we've had two really bad blizzards this century, people, one of which i was around for. 1978, for those of you who didn't get to experience the snow-filled wonder. usually, tho, just mentioning The Blizzard around here is sufficient reference.
there are a lot of great things i remember about that storm. of course, my dad who shovelled for three days might disagree. but we had a two level snow fort - an igloo room underneath for my sister, and a massive walled room at the top for me and my brother. we also had a smaller fortification on the other side of the driveway. snowball fights ensued. hot chocolate followed.
and the snowplows built huge mountains at the end of the driveway. now, i know my spatial references were a bit different then, because i was shorter - but that really was a mountain. someone (maybe dad, maybe the neighbor) turned it into an ice slide. it was great fun, and you were dumped right out on the edge of the street. for the week or so where there were no cars, this worked out just fine, because it was the only place where you could really walk, the snow was so deep everywhere else.
mom was sick the week of the storm, i think. looking back, i'd say it was likely a migraine. storms bring those on with me. my brother and i were outside playing in the snow while dad was shovelling, and mom was banging on the bedroom wall trying to catch our attention. she needed dad to help her with something (meds, probably), and we were so captivated by the huge amounts of snow that we didn't really hear her. we heard something, but wrote it off to dad banging the shovel on the driveway to get rid of the snow. poor mom... she must have knocked for a good half an hour. or at least that's the way it seems from here.
thinking back, i can picture dad slicing out blocks of snow, digging down to the driveway a layer at a time. must have been a good five feet got dumped on us. and i'm pretty sure it was the end of January, or the beginning of February. no, it had to have been the beginning of February. we were late mailing our Valentine's to grandparents and aunts. when the roads were finally sort of clear, mom and dad piled us on a sled and trekked up to the end of the street and down to the pond to the post office. it was a one room post office, dar red clapboards, tucked under the trees by the pond where we went ice skating. that postman's creed? kinda out the window after the blizzard.
so, yeah... that, to me, was a bad storm. this one doesn't seem so bad. however, that won't stop me from heading home early and curling up under a fleecy blanket with a good book. 8)
