Watching the NBC Evening News yesterday evening after having shivered and stumbled for hours out shopping during the day gave me a whole new perspective on cold weather. They had a report on the non-stop two days of snow that had belted upstate New York, an area where we almost wound up many years ago when I was leaving Germany.
The base I was looking at as a possible employer has since been shuttered in yet another round of cost-saving closures that, earlier, had prompted my initial search (where did all the money we saved from winning the cold war so we cut the overhead go anyway?). I was speaking with the Base Commander on the phone, prior to his offering me the position. I asked about the winters, and more specifically about the snow, and he replied by asking me how tall I was. When I told him I had served (I may have used the word 'spent') in Greenland he offered 'then you'll love it here.' I realised it had nothing to do with Eskimos and continued to look for jobs.
They say the camera adds ten pounds and from what I saw in the report, they must have used a LOT of cameras to file the story. It sure looked like they had feet of snow and not a measly inch and change like we did around here, most of which got washed away when the weather warmed and everything turned to rain. It's NOT turning to rain in upstate New York until April, maybe, if they're lucky.
And they're interviewing people who have mastered that 'whatcha gonna do?' nonchalance that always makes me grin because it's so human. And each of us has some situation that we've been in at some point where we've said and done pretty much the same thing in the same manner and walk like Brando right into the sun, and then dance just like a Casanova. Right after the snow plow gets done with the three feet of partially cloudy that life has left on your doorstep.
-bill kenny
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