Right now while you are reading this we are moving closer towards Spring, a time when life awakens all around us and most of the continental United States breathes a sigh of relief as the short days and long nights of Winter fall away, taking the snow and ice with it.
Just take a look around this issue of the Dolphin Talk, where the ‘talk’ includes Valentine’s Day, in my mind always the sign post that Spring will arrive sooner then I think.
However, through the magic of the internet and publishing deadlines I am writing this to you from the early days of the New Year, near Chicago, Illinois where not even a week ago the temperatures dropped at times to forty-five degrees below zero with the wind chill, a day when even the polar bears at the zoo went inside because it was too damn cold.
On the Texas Gulf Coast, weather events like this are as unlikely as a mermaid making a visit to a local fishing spot or a sighting of ‘Nessie’ out in one of the bays.
In Chicago, dubbed the Windy City for a reason, the recent Arctic Vortex that engulfed a large portion of the country meant a very rough start to 2014, that involved many dangerous weather conditions that even led to a small number of deaths and injury’s from causes ranging from car crashes to fires caused by improperly used space heaters.
Personally, the event felt like something from the film The Day After Tomorrow, as people stayed inside and a lot of schools and businesses shut, making the outside world seemed as lifeless and frigid as the air that froze my nose hairs.
A well known phrase in this area of the Midwest is if you don’t like the weather just wait a day or two and it will change (personally I think this verbal ‘meme’ is said in a lot of different areas but hey we think it makes us special).
Fortunately for us that saying does usually seem to hold true as less then a week later it was raining like God had stubbed his toe on a really sharp table leg and the world around me turned into a veritable obstacle course of cold puddles, slippery snow pack and drivers who seemed to think the weather was really seventy degrees and sunny with no traffic.
Speaking of Winter weather the state of Texas never sees, I often find that small talk conversations in passing over here about how badly the drivers are taking their Winter driving responsibilities always leads me to tell the tale of the short and sweet snow fall I witnessed in El Paso in 1993 or so.
At the time I was in high school, a recent transplant from Chicago in my first stint in the Lone Star State. The snow that fell that day in the desert was what would be a called a ‘dusting’ here, but I recall it caused major havoc on the streets of the still growing city, causing accidents all along I-10 as well as slipping feet the next morning as we returned to school.
I recall standing outside the school that morning with my friends who were a mix of people from Texas, Florida, California and Mexico. They were taking the idea of below freezing temperatures badly, wrapped in coats designed to climb Mt. Everest while their teeth chattered like a cheap novelty gag.
I suppose if anything this is my love letter to Texas in a way because despite the love I will always have at the center of my heart for the Chicago land area this love does not extend to icicles, shovels and snow plows.
Speaking of love, this is also right about the anniversary date for me writing for this publication. The two years have just flown by as time seems to do and for those of you who have read this space and are reading this now… thank you.
