The Snowstorm From Hades

For those of you in the northeast, I feel for you. 

The coming snowstorm sounds like a monster, and reminds me of my first big storm when I was living in the New York area, the “Blizzard of 1996.”

If memory serves, it really kicked in on Sunday, January 7. I was living in the White Plains area, and had walked down to a local bar so I could watch a Dallas Cowboys football game on their TV there.

I remember the snow starting to fall in the first half.  By the end of the game, snow completely covered the sidewalk outside.

I walked home through the snow, and it was still coming down pretty consistently and pretty heavily.

I had no idea.

When I awakened the next morning, I looked outside and snow was piled up halfway up the door of a car parked across the street.

I was speechless. Growing up in north Texas, it was a HUGE deal to ever see ANY snow.  To see it fall like there was an endless supply…well, I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.

New York City had pretty much shut down.  Before it was all over, they were dumping snow into the Hudson River, as there was nowhere else to put it.

IBM offices were closed on Monday, and I think Tuesday, that week, but I remember being able to work from home through a phone line.  Yes, a phone line.  You know, with a modem.  Where you dialed up to your server and got that really annoying connecting noise when the modem finally coupled.  

I can still hear that sound today, 17 years later, like it was yesterday.

My recommendation to my friends in New York, Boston and in between: Run to the store, buy yourself plenty of food and water, a bottle of whiskey, some candles and batteries, and just hibernate. 

If it’s good enough for bears, it’s good enough for we humans, especially in a mjor snowstorm.  Sounds like a perfectly good opportunity to read that latest book you’ve been putting off.

Oh, that, and make sure you go out and play in the snow.  You don’t want to let all that white stuff go to waste!

P.S. I’m expecting to fly up to New York City on Monday for a business trip, so I’d appreciate you all clearing the runways at JFK sometime over the weekend.  ‘Kay, thanks!