Please allow me to interject my feelings about Mother Nature

Just a slight coating of ice on bridges will cause mayhem. I drove to work this morning and saw a totaled SUV on the "viadock."

 

This weekend it's going to be colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra. Talking single digits.

Bad thing is, when the deep cold sets in around here, it tends to stick around for a while.

 

Better two feet of snow than a quarter inch of ice. Ice is the worst thing winter has to offer.

 

As these poor schmucks are about to discover.

 

Every time I see a Northerner mocking us down South for not being able to drive in winter weather, I think about how lucky they are to get snow instead of ice.

 

No icing in Alabama? Get a Sharpie.

 

Poor schmuck here. The drizzle we’ve had all day is starting to freeze. Should lay down a nice base for the freezing rain expected for 3 am. Just tested the gas logs to make sure they’re ready for if/when the power goes out.

 

I got caught in a sudden freezing rain a few years ago. I was driving along, it started hitting my windshield, I sort of did a WTH, realized what was happening, and dived into someone's driveway. It wasn't 30 seconds later the roads were a solid sheet of ice, and cars were bouncing off one another like pinballs. I was stuck for about two hours, but at least I wasn't one of the casualties.

 

Spend four Massachusetts winter days without power and one learns to fear the power of ice.

 

That is one of my all-time favorite sports quotes. Yeah, Hornsby wasn’t exactly the nicest guy in the world. But reading that quote, I like to imagine him sitting in a cabin out in the snowy woods somewhere, doing little more than making a fire in a fireplace, and sitting at the window in a rocking chair on a gray day, waiting for spring.

 

I still shudder thinking about the Ice Storm of ‘98. I was in Podunk at that time, and we didn’t have power for four days. And since we lived in Podunk, we were the lucky ones. The people who lived in Bumfuckville and Bumblefuckburg didn’t have power for two weeks.

 

People up north laugh at us and the panic that sets in down here when snow is forecast. Bread and milk magically vanish, the whole town shuts down, etc. The thing is that down here there's probably a one in three chance that what we get is sleet and freezing rain (which freezes into glaze ice) with snow on top of it. Glaze ice on these hills means cars in ditches, that can't get up the hill or up the driveway, and dodge'em cars in the streets. Throw in that it does not make sense to keep snowplows and such vehicles when they are so seldom used. We're lucky to get sand on the interstate bridges and major hills. No one has chains or snow tires. It's mayhem when it happens. Throw in ice heavy branches breaking and falling on ice coated power lines and we're freezing in the dark.