Lord help me, but I am beginning to sound like everyone's great grandpa. In my original post today, I implied that current snowstorms are pretty wimpy compared to what Nebraska used to get, specifically back in the early to mid-1970s. But we did! It's true. I swear!
Snow was piled up 3 feet deep along streets and in parking lots well into May every year. As one of my closest friends (who shares my love of tongue-in-cheekiness) says, "We had to walk uphill 30 miles each way, every day." No such thing as a snow day for us! [The girls in those days weren't allowed to wear pants to school, either. Jeans in school, on males or females, were entirely unheard of. Nor were girls allowed to wear pants and change once they got to school. Even in the days of maxi-coats and hip-hugger boots, that was a stupid policy.--Ed.]
Seriously: we did walk to school even during the worst of the storms. Nowadays, however, a mere 2 inches of snow seems to call for Winter Storm Warnings, school and business closures, and general wailing and great gnashing of teeth.
My brain tells me this is just the pendulum swinging too far in response to what obviously was an untenable situation 30-plus years ago. My heart tells me we've become a bunch of wimps.
In any event, it provides additional, if anecdotal, evidence supporting global warming. My generation's parents' parents don't recall any winters, even during the Dust Bowl, as relatively mild as what we've experienced over the past decade and a half.
Frankly, I'd rather have the old-time big storms.
1 comment:
You read Charles Krauthammer?!? BLEAH!
Seriously, I think you make a good point--which for me goes back to us baby boomers and how collectively we were crappy parents: we wanted our kids to be our friends, not our kids. (We sure weren't going to raise them the way we were raised.) We thus abrogated our responsibilities to them by raising them that way. Heaven help me, but sometimes John Rosemond is right.
I read John Rosemond?!? BLEAH!
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