And it will be over when?

Remember the TV commercial for Dunkin' Donuts with the little round baker knowing 'it's time to make the donuts'? The whole thing was about how fresh DD kept their stock. He starts out baking early in the 8 am with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. Weighed down by the every four hour task, by the end of the commercial and the last "time to make the donuts" he's dragging and almost weeping.

What I keep hearing in the back of my head, like a voice over, is "time to shovel the snow"....I know it's only been a month or so, but my neighbor Mark and I are having trouble remembering those halcyon days before the snows came. I know we're all dealing with this stuff, but I have as much right to whine as anyone.

Yesterday, I came home and their was a four foot long, 18 inch tall clump of snow in the middle of the entrance to the driveway. I thought it was snow and was about to drive through it when I had a moment of uncharacteristic thoughtfulness. I got out to check and sure enough, it was solid ice. It took my neighbor across the street and I about 10 minutes to chop it up enough to make two pieces we could lift. I just got my front bumper replaced and, had I driven into that clump I would have been hard pressed to explain to my insurance company why I was so stupid.

But the dangers are everywhere. We take turn walking our dog on the canal path every day. We walk about .8 miles and then back. All through the storms the park department has kept the canal reasonably plowed--you could distinguish between ice and asphalt when you walked. But yesterday they plowed and then it kept snowing for two hours, so all the ice was covered by a dusting of snow. I gave up after about 300 yards and after the dog fell twice. I thought, if he can't stand up with four legs, what chance do I have.

Just as we turned back, a runner came running by with his Lab running off leash (a no-no on the canal) through the snow banks. The dog had good enough since to not run on the path, unlike his human. I asked as the runner flashed past, "Aren't you afraid you'll fall?"

"It happens," he said, "but what's the option???"

I wanted to tell him, a tread mill at a gym, but he was already gone.

As F.Scott Fitzgerald said of the wealthy, "runners are not like you and me...."

And our effort to compete with Japan and Germany and China in education is being thwarted since our school children are seldom in school

And it will all be over When?