Building Walls Against the Neighbors
9:30pm... 25 degrees outside... just came in from another half hour of snow shoveling.
The Himalayan range of snow between us and our neighbors to the west has now reached the height of my hips. Utah cities are reporting that they they have exhausted their street-cleaning budgets, or... run out of places to put the snow. Put the snow. Like, "we got such a good deal on potatoes we bought 30 pounds and we don't have a place to 'put the potatoes.'" Put the snow? You pile it up. You push it around. It melts! Nope, not here, not this winter.
I'm officially impressed. We haven't seen our grass since Thanksgiving weekend - that's nine straight weeks of snow on the ground. The ice is 2" thick in a couple spots in the driveway. I've tried to create a consistent snowplow path to move the trash cans from the garage to the sidewalk. Now, this is winter. I don't remember this much white stuff in Chicago in ten winters there. Sure, you'd get a foot here and there but it goes away. You don't have to come up with places to "put it."
Today's storm hit mid-morning with a wall of black clouds that looked like an oncoming tornado. It was 40 degrees when I took Lucca to school at 8:30 - yet the clouds brought 75mph wind, a precipitous drop in temperature and 4-6 inches of snow in less than three hours. It was cool. I saw a half dozen accidents and slide-offs in the four mile circuit from my office to Lucca's school to home. On my way back to work, I tried to play good samaritan and answered a woman's plea for a ride from a bus stop near my house to a pharmacy about a mile away. But the pharmacy was up a hill and the first road, (400 South which leads to the football stadium) was closed by police. 200 South was open, but I watched a Honda SUV make it half way up, start sliding backwards and narrowly miss a parked car. Fortunately a snow plow came by. I circled around the block to follow him up the hill. He made it halfway. And stopped. He couldn't make it either. After 15 minutes, my hitchhiking passenger decided to walk. Hope she made it.
The far more serious news here in the Beehive State today is the passing of 97-year-old LDS President, Seer, Prophet and Revelator, Gordon B. Hinckley. As much as I can be cynical about the "dominant religion" here, I have been impressed with this man, his work and his legacy. Every organized religion deserves a servant and leader so humble and with such conviction.
His 80-year-old apparent successor, Thomas Monson, seems a little creepy to me... he sold newspaper advertising... then managed and served as director of the Deseret News (LDS-owned) daily newspaper, and also oversaw KSL, the church's TV station... how many media sales people do you know that you'd have confidence in to direct your global religion with 13 million followers? Who am I to say... he's not my prophet, revelator and seer.
What are they doing letting some young whippersnapper take over the whole religion?
Posted by: KT | January 31, 2008 at 06:22 PM