I missed what appears to be a record-breaking snowfall in Baltimore. And, in some ways, I really did MISS it. I don’t much care for snow, particularly in my hometown, which isn’t particularly skilled at handling it. (Our snow removal plan seems to rely rather heavily on the old-fashioned technology known as “Melt, please.”) But these are the things of which memories are made. And, sometimes, valuable new habits: It was the blizzard of 2003 that got me started writing at Spoons on a daily basis. I actually feel guilty, writing this in a city where the sky is blue and temperatures are forecast to reach 60 or so today.
But being away from Baltimore meant I was in place to experience New Orleans winning its first Super Bowl. And it was sweet. Not the arch, drawn-out “sweeeeeeet!” of recent vernacular, but truly sweet. Adorable, even. In the days before the game, locals were nervous, on tenterhooks. It sometimes seemed as if people might burst into tears from sheer anxiety. A well-timed “Who Dat?” could earn one a particularly good Mardi Gras throw. (Thank you, Krewe of Sparta, for my first-ever “real” Mardi Gras necklace, one made with the glass beads that were once common.) The hours before the game, the city felt like Christmas Eve, hushed and waiting.
As a newcomer and part-timer, I approach the Saints with deference, a stance I explained to the checker at Whole Foods on Sunday. I didn’t want to jump a bandwagon, although I yearned for a “WHO DAT NATION” T-shirt. “You’re entitled, you live here,” she said. Then, on an apparent hunch, she asked: “And you can hate the Colts, right?” Boy, can I! So I focused on my Colt hate and let the good people of New Orleans bring the love. We have to play to our strengths.
Within minutes of game’s end, I was on Magazine Street, drinking in the scene, which was mild compared to what was happening in the Quarter. The people here are quite good at celebrating; they know how to vent their high spirits without destroying property. People sang, they cheered. A family tossed Mardi Gras beads from the bed of a pick-up truck. A police officer waved a Saints jersey from his car, even as he encouraged people to get out of the streets and onto the sidewalks. A giddy — okay, drunk — woman told me a convoluted story about how she came to be setting off fireworks in the middle of the street.
Today, the city is blissed out, the Times-Picayune is impossible to find and only four people showed up for the Monday Cardio-Combat class. It’s a day made for basking. Parade tomorrow. Then seven straight days of parades, actually. I am a Baltimore girl, crabbed and pessimistic. But I’m happy to be a bystander to all this euphoria.
Memories of big events/celebrations/blizzards, if you’re so inclined.
The big winter storm of 1950 dumped 30″ of snow on Pittsburgh. I was three and just barely remember the igloo-tunnel my dad and brother built along the edge of our back porch. I got in there and thought everything was wonderful. I’m glad I wasn’t old enough to know better.
In 1977, Meadville, PA (30 mi. south of Erie, from where I had just moved back near Pittsburgh) got a 30″ snow. My family watched it on the news and kept asking me if I missed living in Meadville.
July 4, 1976 – our country’s bicentennial, and this Pennsylvania girl was in New Orleans, where everyone wanted to know why I wasn’t in Philadelphia instead.
Winter 1979: new to Baltimore by three weeks, I found myself in my first blizzard and dumped by my boyfriend. The snow plow driver refused to give my car a jump. I had no boots, gloves or ice scraper. Welcome to Baltimore, hon.
Winter of 1983: almost a blizzard and with a new baby, found myself home alone and my husband nowhere to be found. On purpose.
Blizzard of 1986 as I shoveled snow yet one more time, made a decision to move to Florida.
Blizzard of 1991, freshly moved back from Florida that husband, now an ex, rescuses me and our son from the Texaco station in Mt. Washington after my car dies on I83.
Blizzard of 1994 my neighbors and I dig ourselves out of the snow because the new development we lived in wasn’t on the snow plow list.
Blizzard of 2003, I looked out the window at 5am, realized that I had a small window to get my son back to college in DC and me back home, jumped in the car and sped as fast as the snow allowed to return him to school. I got stuck on New York Ave, jumped out and shoveled my way clear and drove back on an unplowed I95. My car got stuck in the snow about 50 feet from my front door.
This weekend? I dug myself out of those 28 inches, stayed true to my diet, took aspirin for my sore shoulders and gave thanks for my 73 year old exercise instructor’s insistence that we do 100 situps a day and always work our shoulders. I watched one full season of House MD, Enjoyed being home.
The next snowstorm? Bring it on.
Go, Jackie! I am truly inspired.
Election Night 1992: my friend Joanne and I went to a party we actually had an invitation to, at the National Women’s Democratic Club (well, Joanne had the invitation; I was her guest). We ran into another friend who said she was meeting people at the Democratic Club on Capitol Hill, and she could get us in there, so we took a cab across town.
At the Democratic Club, one of us started chatting with a much older man who offered us all a ride in his rented limo to the Omni Shoreham, where the DNC party was. We were sure we wouldn’t be able to get in, but no one was checking invitations, and we walked into the ballroom just as the electoral college vote went over the top for Clinton. Everyone was crying and cheering and hugging, and it felt like the beginning of everything.
During the DC blizzard of 1996, my housemates and I were snowed in for three days. On the morning we finally saw a conga line of snowplows making their way up 15th Street, we stood in the front window and applauded.
“Memories of big events/celebrations/blizzards, if you’re so inclined.”
Well, whenever the Haley Bopp comet flew past (more than ten years ago, I know), I remember one particularly starry evening when it was brilliantly hanging in the night sky; it just made us stop in our tracks and stare. Our children were gazing up at it, and we all just let our jaws drop; it was striking, beautiful, and memorable; and we knew that, like mostly all beautiful things, it was also ephemeral.
I suppose that’s the key; out-of-this-world beauty and spectacle, coupled with a strictly limited-time offer. And it had an essential strangeness. Here’s this site that you’ve seen in books or movies – but live and yours to admire, free of charge.
PS – finished Butcher’s Hill (either Sugar House or Spider’s Web is next) and enjoyed it very much. When a particular character was trying to get out of the window of Tess’s office bathroom, there was a line that referred to a “brown topsider floating in the toilet” – which threw me off completely (I thought “ewwwww”). It was a page later and a reference to the character walking with a soggy shoe that it finally hit me what the hell a “brown topsider” was (people wore those back when I was younger!). And speaking of wardrobe, I have noticed over the course of 4 or 5 LL books (including the collection of short stories) that beautiful women who dress in yellow and black (and with matching shoes and bag) pop up with some regularity, and are metaphorical Black Eyed Susans. If I was tasked to buy Valentine’s Day flowers for LL, it would HAVE to be a big bunch of those
Well be happy! they are now forcasting another 10-18 inches to start tomorrow afternoon. Yes, on top of this 28 plus snow we just had and don’t know where to put. We just walked down to the end of the street to see what the cross street looked like. There is no way I’m getting out today or tomorrow morning. I am guessing I am homebound for another 3 or 4 days. And I’m all out of snacks!!!! I don’t care about the milk and bread. hahaha
My sister and I had to attend a high school band competition one time on a Saturday. There had been massive snow during the night and it was still coming down. There were no radio announcements that it was cancelled so we cleaned off the car and drove the 3 miles to the school. We all hung out at the school until it was officially cancelled and the we drove back home. Only then did we find out that everything in that part of the state was closed and the roads were impassible! This was in Michigan.
A few years ago my hubby was in the hospital with pneumonia and I was laid up with some kind of crud. It was St. Patrick’s day weekend and Denver got 30 some inches of snow. I was never so glad to have him in the hospital in my life! The snow went up over the top of the dog door (and I had an Irish Wolfhound at the time). Fortunately we have a french door that opens in, so I could let him out. The worst part for me was that I had only a couple of pieces of firewood in the house, none in the close in woodrack and no way to get to the large pile on the north side of the house. I desperately wanted the comfort of a fire but didn’t dare use up what I had in case the power went out and I needed it for heat! I didn’t even have a chance to do a Laura Ingalls Wilder.
I’ve experienced snow in Los Angeles, several times, once on Chrismas morning. Enough snow to be able to make a snowball. I’ve been in big snows in DC and they really aren’t good at handling it. But boy, would we be in trouble in LA if it snowed a significant amount and significant would be an inch or so.
More memories of big events came up. One in DC. I was one of the co-ordinators of The March for Women’s Lives, which a Million people attended. I have a specific memory of standing on the landing of the Lincon Memorial, which we used as the stage. I was talking to two men who had provided security for MLK at the March on Washington, where he gave his “I have a Dream” speach at the same spot. Peter Paul and Mary were peforming about fifteen feet away. It felt historic at the time and still does.
Chapel Hill, 1982. UNC won the national basketball championship for the first time in years. The most vivid memory was of walking down to Franklin Street and being greeted by the site of a naked man, painted blue, in a tree. And that wasn’t the last naked person painted blue we saw that night. It wasn’t even the last naked blue person we saw in a tree.
The next day I had to shave off my beard because there was so much blue paint in it there was no way to get it all out. I’ve never worn a beard since.
Sorry if this is a bit off topic and late, BE LUCKY THAT YOU’VE EVER SEEN SNOW, last week was the first time that I ever saw real snow, and it only fell two or three inches here in Georgia.