snow that stays

The current snow is going to be here for a while. I looked at the 10 day forecast and daytime temperatures don't get out of the 30's until Valentine's day and all the lows are 22 or below.

I remember other snows that stayed around.

Three or four years ago there were 14 storms, most of them on weekends, and the snow piled up around our driveway was over my head. And that all did havoc to church attendance, though I made it every week. Once we had 5 for the 8 am Eucharist and 21 for the 10:15 service and only a handful for the Hispanic Mass at noon--most of those people were not used to negotiating snow in any way.

Then back in the winter of 71-72, when Bern and I were newly married and living in Cambridge, MA, it started snowing in late November and didn't stop until late February. The temperature at all times was below freezing for most all that time. That's the winter I lost my wedding ring and a "Hungarian Sheep dog" found it in the snow and brought it to me in her teeth. So I decided we needed on of those dogs. Unfortunately, there are two breeds known as "Hungarian Sheep Dogs". The one who found my ring was a Commadore. The one we ended up with was a Puli. Commadores are white, weight over 80 pounds and silent. Pulis are black as midnight, about 50 pounds and bark for a living. We're on our second Puli now. They are stubborn, independent, beyond training and astonishingly loyal. we've loved them both. Finney, the first one, when we were young and had young children, was my favorite. Bela, our current Puli is loved by Bern more than any creature we've ever lived with--and there have been dozens. I can forgive him his faults because it makes my heart swell to see how much Bern loves him.

Then there was the snow in Charleston WV in the early 80's of the last century when our street, Hazelwood Avenue, was impassable for about a week. That's when our first Puli was alive. I let him out the front door after 12 hours of snowing and the snow was up even with our front porch, which had five steps up to it. He ran off the porch and disappeared into the snow. I had to go dig him out.

That happened to Bela on Wednesday morning this week after the big snow. He ran off the steps to our deck and couldn't get back. I literally took a shovel and dug him out so he could get up the steps.

Those are the snows that hung around that I remember most. But having lived all my life in places where it snows a lot (except for two years in Alexandria, VA where one year there wasn't even a killing frost) I'm sure there are more awful 'staying snows' I don't remember. One of the things about being me is this: I have a remarkable capacity to forget bad things.

I don't even ponder that capacity...I just give thanks for it.....

Photo from the past....

My friend Mike Miano sent me a photo today of 10 people around a table at what he tells me was a Newman Club meeting at Gary's Country Club.

Well, so he says.

I have no memory whatsoever of this event or where it was! Neither does Bern.

But the faces I know.

They are faces from my childhood, my adolescence, my young adulthood, and two of them are with me still--much older than then, but with me still.

At the far right of the frame is Bern in half profile, only her face and just a hint of her hair. She is in that photo, as now, beautiful.

Then there is me, black framed glasses, actually wearing a tie with dark, dark brown hair. I wish I were savvy  enough to put the photo on this post, but I'm not. If for no other reason so you who know me could see me with dark hair and a hint of a moustache and young, so  young.

Then there is Jane Jaspers, a lovely, wonderful young woman that I often thought about asking for date, but never did.

With her is Kyle Parks, who I knew from the time I was in first grade until we were out of college. Kyle was my best friend for years and years. Then he went to Viet Nam as a Navy pilot and I avoided the war by going to Harvard Divinity School. I haven't seen him since. That particular war divided people in ways like that. I miss him from time to time. For 16 years we were best friends.

The next person, right in the middle of the photo, is, I believe Christine Rogg, younger than me but another dear person. Then there is Leo Kroll, Bern's age, who we knew into college years until he killed himself. I never knew why and regret not knowing or not knowing how to stop that.

Above Leo in this long ago photo is Tottie Cardwell, a good time girl and dear friend of Bern's. Tootie was from one of the richer families and a toot.

Beneath her is the only person I don't recognize. A lovely young woman who doesn't fit into the cracks in my brain enough to recognize.

Then there is, in barely profile, Anthony Pisano, Bern's first cousin who lives in Providence, RI with Uncle Frankie, who is 90. 'Tony' is still in our lives and a dear man--growing old as we are.

Then, inexplicably, at the bottom left of the photo, leaning in to get in the photo, is Jim Hines, who was from Welch, not Gary, and who was a good friend of my brother-in-law Dan in later life. Jim was a victim of AIDS and before he died was an activist and actually worked for the city of Philadelphia as an coordinator of  AIDS services.

I loved Jim but have no idea what he's doing in this photograph.

None of this much makes good sense, like most memories of long ago. But those are people I'd be proud to spend an evening with--especially if I get to be 20 again....

(I probably got one or two of the faces wrong--but I'm getting old and feeble. But I did have several endorphin rushes looking at that photo--though I don't remember the occasion at all--and am so happy Mike sent it to me. I really was THAT young once! Now I have proof.....)

winter wonderland

The snow on the sidewalks in our neighborhood is higher than our Puli, Bela. He's freaked out about it since he doesn't like to 'do his business' on walkways. But there is no way for him to leave them.

(Why on earth do we talk about a dog's eliminations as 'doing his business'? Makes Bela's pee and poop seem like he works at a store or is a CPA or a lawyer, for goodness sake. What he does when I take him for a walk is pee and poop. That's not 'business'. Bela doesn't have a 'business', he just pees and poops and I praise him for it every time.

I pee and poop quite a bit. And never once, not since I was two, has anyone praised me for it...or considered either a business transaction.)

The bed of Bern's Nissan truck is totally full of snow, up to the very edges. Which is good since it is a front wheel drive truck and the weight of the snow should be an advantage on mushy and slick streets.

Bela's dilemma is mine as well. Often I feel locked in by life the way he finds himself locked in by snow above his head. This morning he went down the back steps of our deck and was so immersed in snow I had to go dig him out. But I give him this: he ran down into snow over his head. He took the risk. He made the leap.

I don't do that enough. I don't break the boundaries or jump into deep water (or snow) enough.

I've learned a lot from the dogs I have shared life with.

Maybe my 'business' is to venture out beyond what is safe and known.

Maybe I am being called to plunge in to what is not safe more than I do.

I'll ponder that....and invite you to ponder it as well.

Snow on the trees ii

Robert Frost thought 'good fences make good neighbors'.

My take is different: 'snow storms made good neighbors'.

Bern was shoveling out our sidewalks when the neighbor to the left of us asked if she needed help. She told him, "No, it's not pride, I just enjoy doing it...."

First of all, how nice of that of him since his sidewalks were under a foot of snow as well? Second of all, how smart was I to marry a woman who 'enjoys' shoveling snow?

Then our neighbor across the street brought over her snow blower to work on our driveway. She's about 22 or so and, as Bern told her, 'has a future in snow removal!'

Then the mom and teenage daughter from the house to our right--who share our huge driveway--brought brooms and shovels to clean off cars.

When I took the dog on a walk this afternoon, I spoke with 4 different folks in the neighborhood who were out blowing or shoveling snow. We seldom see each other since most of the people on our block leave in the a.m. to jobs all over--New Haven, Hartford, Meriden and Waterbury that I'm sure of. But a snow that shuts everything down the way this one did gets us all outside and talking to each other.

Besides all that--was my Dad ever right about snow staying on trees means more is coming!!!!

Today's the day

the music died....

Yes, beloved, it has been 55 years--February 3, 1959--since a one engine plane carrying Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Vallens crashed outside Clear Lake, Iowa, killing three of the most popular musicians of the time.

I was 11 (unwittingly revealing my age!) and remember hearing about it the next day in school. 4th grade girls were weeping and all the boys (except Charlie Harmon who knew nothing about popular music) were stunned. Things got so out of hand that Miss Hawkins, our teacher, threatened to start spanking people if order was not restored.

Teachers could make such threats in those days. And they were obeyed.

Charlie Harmon not only knew nothing about music, Charlie knew almost next to nothing about much of anything. Charlie was 15 and in the 4th grade only out of mercy from Mrs. Bingham, Mrs. Santie and Mrs. Short--the first, second and third grade teachers. Charlie had taken 8 years to get to the 4th grade and shouldn't have been then. Charlie, God bless him, should have been in an institution (which there were in those days) for severely damaged children. His parents weren't much smarter than Charlie but they had beat any possibility of intellect out of him. He was huge to us at 11 and, blessedly for him and the 5th grade teacher whose name I can't for the life of me remember, able to quit school after 4th grade. We all knew that Charlie had been beaten silly. Such things in rural America in 1959 were commonplace. The little community of Anawalt (population 455) and the several surrounding coal camps whose children came to Anawalt Elementary and Junior High (all in the same building) did not ship away their problematic and defective. However, nothing was ever done to Charlie's parents, who continued to beat him silly until he, at 17, was big enough to beat them back. And no one reported that to the authorities either since it seemed to be poetic justice.

Anyway, Charlie chewed tobacco. He wasn't the only one in 4th grade that did, but the only one not clever enough not to get caught. Miss Hawkins (the old maid daughter of the town Druggist--we didn't call them 'pharmacists' then or there) caught him chewing tobacco in class the day the music died. She drug him by his ear to the boys bathroom, took his pack of Red Man and made him eat and swallow the whole thing. After which he threw up enough that the school nurse would have been called if we had a school nurse.

Here we all were, now grieving for Charlie as much as for Buddy, Richie and the Big Bopper as Charlie raced from the room several times to vomit up Red Man tobacco.

Miss Hawkins, the meanest woman I ever knew, I think, was epileptic. David Jordan, by far the most trustworthy and best kid in our class, had, at the beginning of the school year, be entrusted to be the one to run to the office and tell Mr. Ramsey, the principal, that Miss Harmon was having an epileptic seizure.

The day after the music died and those three cult heroes were being pulled from the wreckage of a plane built in 1947--the year of the birth of almost everyone in the class but Charlie and Miss Harmon--the seizure finally came.

I don't think it was the death of Buddy and Richie and the Big Bopper that brought it on. I don't even think it was the exertion of energy in making Charlie Harmon eat a whole package of Chewing Tobacco. What I think brought on the episode is threatening 11 year old children who were, perhaps for the first time, grieving for something of their youth, with a spanking with a paddle that made God make Doris Harmon fall down gasping, twitching and flailing on the floor of Anawalt's 4th grade classroom.

When David Jordan jumped up to run to the office, Donny Davis and Arnold Butler, the closest we had to thugs in the class, blocked his way.

"Just a minute," Donnie told him.

So, for a while, on the day after the music died, 23 eleven year old children, watched a tall, skinny woman that heated writhe on the floor for several minutes. Then Charlie threw up at his desk and David ran to the office and Jess Ramsey, the principal, took over our class after the ambulance finally came and she was gone. Jess had no idea what to do in a class room and wondered why the big boy in the back kept gagging and why the rest of the students suddenly seemed so confident and self-assured.

Poetic justice seemed to be done that day as well and the day Charlie finally beat the shit out of his father who had beat him for years.

It's hard to imagine I could forget about today's anniversary, given all that.

Google Don McClain (sp?) or "American Pie" and listen to the song (hopefully with the original '72 or so music video) about the day before Charlie vomited and Miss Hawkins had a fit.....

(If you pray, say a little prayer for Buddy and Richie and the Big Bopper this day...they deserve it....)

Snow on the trees

There are superstitions everywhere. There are regional superstitions, superstitions farmers have, cultural superstitions and some that might belong exclusively to a family.

("Superstition" is a section of the Making a Difference workshop I help lead.  We ask the participants, "When is a superstition not a superstition?" And then we have a conversation about the superstitions the participants know about--the Irish workshops always bring up some I've never heard before....The answer to the question we ask is, "when it isn't".... That is, things are 'superstitions' only we we don't believe them. "The world is flat," is a superstitions to us, but look at very early maps and there will be warnings like "There be dragons!" only a few miles off the coast. Europe, until the 15th century, operated out of "the world IS flat" and to suggest otherwise was madness....)

One of the things my father always said, that I just considered a superstition, is 'if the snow stays on the trees through the day after the storm, more snow is on the way'.

I look out my window in the gathering dusk and the huge fir and hemlock trees that are my only view, are weighed down with snow from yesterday. And, it ain't my father but the National Weather Service who is telling me, "it ain't over yet, Jimmy boy!"

So, Virgil Hoyt Bradley, Dad 'o mine, wherever you are, I owe you an apology. The snow stayed on the trees even though it was above freezing and sunny all the live long day. You weren't just making stuff up.

Here's the problem, Dad, now I've got to reexamine all the other things you told me so long ago that I assumed were utter nonsense.

That's going to be a pain....

The Blooper Bowl

I really didn't care who won though I admire Payton Manning greatly and am always attacted to great defenses, which Seattle has. All I wanted was a great game, a memorable football experience.

The team I've always rooted for is the Chicago Bears, since a child, because I loved their home uniforms--black helmets, black jerseys with red and orange numbers and white pants with red and orange stripes. In the last year I have been a Jets fan as well since Geno Smith from West Virginia University was their quarterback as a rookie.

But with half the third quarter over and neither the Bears or Jets in the game, 36-0 Seattle is too much to take. I'd rather write a blog post about the Blooper Bowl.

Three turnovers that led to scores and a beginning the second half TD on the kickoff, well, Payton, you've had a great year but a terrible day.

But Bern bet on the Seahawks at the consignment shop and will get an extra 15% off her next purchase. We live off the consignment shop. I'm wearing a shirt and sweater she got for me there. Most of our gifts to children and grandchildren come from there. People come from miles around to the Cheshire Consignment Shop cause it's so good. Just beside the YMCA on South Main Street if your interested.

Maybe I'll go with her when she goes.....