You longer term members will remember when Kathy and I bailed from South Carolina to a triumphant return to the snow-belt of Massachusetts, followed up the coast by Hurricane "Sandy", right on our heels. Actually, our daughter, in the western "Worcester Hills", is really in the snow belt. She's 1,000 feet higher than we are and that means that when the rest of the state gets 17 snowflakes, Anna gets a foot. don't worry, though..... She has a big, burly husband who takes care of the yard for her. He looks just like the "Butt Naked" guy from the "Duluth Traders" commercials.
Anyway, we returned to the coldest winter in old timer's memory and that lasted into something like July. Not having suffered through bone-chilling, finger-numbing, butt constricting cold for a decade, it wasn't kind to us, believe me. We figured it couldn't get any worse than that.
HA! We were so wrong.
The very next winter we got the heaviest overall snowfall on record - 11'-3" at the North Grafton Fire Station over the whole winter. Three of the storms dumped around 3' each! After a while, you run out of places to put it. Snow blowers couldn't blow it up and over the sides of the driveways. You can't see anything at intersections and the tips of the fire hydrant flags - the TIPS, mind you - were often buried by the snowplows. You could drive all around our beautiful town common and not see any of it because the snowbanks obstructed your view. Leaving our garage was like driving through an 80 foot long white canyon, six feet high. Miraculously, my mailbox at the street survived all of the snow plowing and pushing back, while few in the neighborhood did.
Wintering in South Carolina was so nice! Even with a week or two of frosts every night in February, it would at least warm up during the day to 40 or so. Now we look forward to Caribbean cruises or a Disney resort each winter and hide out inside where it's warm the rest of the time.
And so, from Stan and me, here's my yearly tribute to "Old Man Winter":
