Published December 5, 2004 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
The holidays bring busy times, so I try to stay ahead of things. That’s why I generally write these columns more than a week before they actually run. That gives Mother Nature 6-8 days to screw with my life.
About 8 days ago, I wrote a column about the lack of snow this holiday season. Was it charming? Oh yes. Was it insightful? Brothers and sisters, it disgorged gold-tinted insight from every open-faced letter in its glorious sentence structure. It may not have been my finest work, but it accomplished the primary mission I strive to complete each week: “Be better than ‘Family Circus.’”
I figured I was safe. It hadn’t snowed all November, and most TV forecasters were predicting just an inch or less of snow the day I sat at the computer to write. “That’ll just melt or blow away,” said me.
Then it snowed – all over the place. Four inches of non-melting, non-blowing-away snow. Greenhorn drivers spiraled into white, puffy ditches. I shoveled. Someone threw a snowball at me. The no-snow column languishes on the shelf, to be seen next by a 22nd Century graduate student studying obscure columnists of the Upper Midwest. He or she will rejoice briefly over the find, before being given a wedgy by a 22nd Century robot bully.
Among the observations made about the snowless winter of just eight days ago were the following: It’s not as Christmas-y; sliding off slick roads more likely to result in fiery wreck instead of happy snow cloud; snowmobilers having a tough time (seriously, the thing costs $10,000 and relies on precipitation, stop whining), etc. That’s out the door now, but my general observations about climate still have some juice.
It’s an amazing thing, global climate. Much of the world spends most of the time in a futile attempt to become cold. Developed countries install air conditioners, others use fans, some just lower the bar on their indecent exposure laws.
Here in the North Country, we only have to do these things for about three or four weeks of the year. From now until St. Patrick’s Day, we emerge from our homes into winter air sharp enough to puncture that infernal packaging they use on small electronic goods. The wind blows, seemingly faster and colder with each step to the car. Fumbling with our keys, we hurry into the sanctuary of our vehicle, cracking the frost on the door hinges. Basking in a brief moment of non-painful cold, we start the engine, only to experience a frozen blast of air from our still-active dashboard vents more jarring than Jack Frost’s glaucoma test. (You know the one, “just a puff” the eye doctor says. That’s no puff, four-eyes.)
From that point on, most of us stay cold for the rest of the day, unless our job is shoveling coal into an old-timey furnace. Me, I haven’t had to do that since I worked in newspaper. (RIMSHOT – Ha! As though newspapers would provide coal for their employees!)
I had intended to riff about how all of this was jeopardized by our lack of snow, but the jeopardy, just like the love shared by early-‘80s pop star Greg Kihn and his “Baby,” has waned to normal, easy listening station levels. We live in northern Minnesota, where snow still falls and cold still reigns. Everything’s OK, folks. Looks like we get another year of plausible deniability for opponents of global warming theories. That’s OK for now; I’m still driving my old car … the one with the lousy heater.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.