Yes, I stayed home from work today. For the second day in a row. I have my excuses, of course. Our three kids had their second snow day in a row and someone had to drive them to sledding, snow football, the movies and the pizza place. The bus I usually take to New York City from Montclair, N. J. was being diverted for some reason. That meant that a 12-mile trip into the city would have probably taken an hour-and-a-half instead of 35 minutes. Three hours roundtrip: no thanks. Any hopes I had of flying out of the New York area were dashed Sunday night–long before “the storm” began. Some storm: We got three and a half inches.
Now I know other areas got a full dump, and that a few people have wrecked their cars or otherwise suffered. But this wintry Chicken Little episode is a real sign of the times.
It used to be that people who lived in the north knew how to handle snow. The folks in places like Washington and the Southern border states had an excuse for driving two miles an hour or huddling indoors when a little fluffy white stuff came down; they had so little experience with snow that allowances had to be made. But northerners knew better.
I grew up in Chicago, where school was canceled only once in my experience–in 1967, when it snowed 27 inches if I remember correctly. (The blizzard of 1978 in the northeast was similar). But these were once-in-a-lifetime events–or so we thought then. We were unfamiliar with the phrase “snow day.” A movie by that name, which came out a couple of years ago, would not have been possible until the 1990s.
I don’t want to sound like one of those stereotypical old geezers (“When I was a boy, we walked barefoot to school…”), but it’s true. In the old days, when it snowed hard, we’d strap the chains on the tires and go to school or work, no questions asked. My father didn’t need anti-lock brakes; he knew how to drive on ice without skidding. So did everyone else above the Mason Dixon line who wasn’t a complete incompetent behind the wheel. Northeasterners knew how to deal with nor’easters. Anything less than two feet was nothing.
But something happened. Now we’re a nation of snow dopes. Maybe it’s because we’re so far removed from war, depression or real suffering that we have to hype our inconveniences into something much bigger. Or maybe the new technology is getting the better of us. Even now, weather forecasting is still an art as well as a science.
Even so, the snow fear this week was irrational. Would someone tell me the point of canceling hundreds of airline flights on Sunday night before any snow fell? The excuse was that the airlines (already dazzling us with the brilliance of their service) didn’t want airplanes stranded in New York. But even the National Weather Service was saying at that point that no heavy snow was expected for 12 hours. Plenty of time to get in and out.
Speaking of the weather service and their TV mouthpieces (also known as weather forecasters), why can’t they ever admit a simple mistake? Why can’t they ever just say, “You know, we told you on last night’s broadcast that this was going to huge but some gum got stuck in our computers and we’re sorry”? Whoever “Doppler” is, he’s the Bill Clinton of weather–never apologize, never explain.
If you count up all the lost wages for teachers, bureaucrats and employees, all of the deals that were delayed and work that went unfinished–we’re talking billions in lost productivity. That part doesn’t bother me much. I got to spend more time with my kids, and I suspect plenty of other parents did, too.
It’s the principle of it. Nowadays even snow is just another snow job.
