Snow is not exactly a stranger in these parts, and even some eventful ten and twelve inch dumps that may have inspired shock and awe in other places get shrugged off like the play of a high school guard who averages a tidy sixteen points per game: nice, but we’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again. But the storm that came up the coast on Thursday was memorable indeed. It began in early afternoon, and twenty four hours later was still delivering flakes in a steady but dilatory fashion, like high school seniors wandering late into a assembly they didn’t much want to attend. In the meantime, a foot of snow had arrived, heavy stuff that got into the tall branches of the big oaks and maples and larches that are all over the county. The added weight flattened the short evergreens and naked azaleas, but worse, snapped the old branches and sent them crashing all over, blocking roads and tearing down power and cable and phone lines everywhere. We were reasonably lucky—last night (Sunday) we drove over the hills to Ossining, and there were still large swathes of dark in places where we knew to be homes, dark acres broken only by the flashing amber lights atop Con Ed trucks.
All we lost was the outside world—cable, internet and phone. It was an interesting experience: the TV I didn’t miss much, and the phone not at all, except for the nagging suspicion that somebody might be looking for us (so seldom the case that it shouldn’t have been worth the bother.) But I soon began to get itchy without the internet, and by Sunday, I was in the clutches of full withdrawal: cranky, irritable, depressed. I’m lucky I didn’t have cold sweats and hallucinations. I finally got some relief with a session on Molly’s laptop at Starbucks. Whew!
The most refreshing experience was to read the newspaper in what was otherwise a news blackout. Big headlines in the Times: Gov. Paterson Drops Bid for Reelection! An 8.2 Earthquake in Chile! What a shock! A sudden trip back to 1978: a couple of items and some scores from Chip Cippola or Donna Fiducia on WNEW-FM, and then the real news at the subway station or the deli from the barking headlines of the papers.