'59 Plymouth Forum

Philadelphia Inquirer wrote:

Weather advisory: Try getting over it
Philadelphians need to chill out about winter.

By Nate House

From conversations at work, at the bar down the street, and with neighbors scraping the ice off their cars, I gather that Philadelphians are sick of the cold and snow. As I write, it's 26 degrees outside, one of my cars won't start, and my short-haired dog won't get out of bed. Forty-four inches of snow have fallen this winter, and ice storms have wreaked havoc with traffic, pedestrians, and trees, one of which now leans against my house.

At first, sledding at the Walnut Lane Golf Club eased the burden. But that, too, has become a kind of winter chore. So I e-mailed my friend in Colorado to tell him about the ice age that has overtaken the Philadelphia region.

"Cold schmold!" was his response. "40 below this morning. Pipes froze."

Then I saw pictures of Lakeshore Drive in Chicago, where cars were suspended in time like frozen mastodons. One recent storm closed bridges in New York City, canceled a fifth of the nation's flights, and buried Oklahoma. Philadelphia started to look and feel like Key West.

As a city, we can handle homicides, losing sports teams, corrupt politicians, failing schools, and a reputation that doesn't exactly put us in the same category as New York, Paris, and Rome. But the one thing Philadelphians can't seem to handle is snow.

As soon as the first flake fell this season, I remem'ber sitting in traffic for more than an hour just trying to get from one side of the city to the other. It was as if that single flake had paralyzed the part of the brain that tells us to move forward.

We feel the need to protect our shoveled parking spots with lawn chairs, trash cans, stolen bright-orange highway cones, and 9mm handguns. The Philadelphia Parking Authority offers discounts in an effort to keep us off the roads during snow emergencies. In a nutshell, we are not winter people.

Even though Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow this month, indicating an early spring, meteorologists disagree. More snow, ice, and mayhem are on the way, and with them, a local accumulation of impatience, frustration, and claustrophobia. Last year set records for snowfall in the region, and this year could come close.

So instead of bemoaning nor'easters, "thunder snow," and ice storms, I say we'd better get used it. I'm not saying we have to don Elmer Fudd hats and talk like we're from Bar Harbor. But a little resilience - a little acceptance of what is, after all, only winter - would help us get through this thing that happens every year.

Instead of cursing the "white stuff" and cold, we should be grateful that it lets us spend more time indoors with kids who have the day off from school. We should remind ourselves that, only six months ago, we were cursing the oppressive heat of summer.

This doesn't have to be another winter of our discontent in Philadelphia. Winter here is a lot easier to handle than it is in many other parts of the country. So are summer, fall, and spring. We don't have many mudslides, tornados, or hurricanes (take that, Dick Koch - Ed.).
This winter, let's be thankful that most of the catastrophes facing this city can be fixed.