No Snow Job

     

Residents of Amarillo, Texas want moisture. We'd prefer a gentle soaking rain, but we'll even rejoice if it snows on Easter morning. How much do we want? A friend said "we'll praise the Good Lord for whatever He sends us."

A Canadian by birth, I was tempted to repeat the old adage "be careful what you wish for." The next day my brother Bill, sent me this reminder of Winnipeg, Manitoba's snowstorm of the century.

He said in his email: "Bernice, you were in Texas, so you missed this storm."

As I continued to read, I realized, despite the dry Texas air, there's nothing I miss about Manitoba's winters.

All these years in Texas, I've laughed about letting kids off school on "snow days." Growing up, I'd never heard of such nonsense. But the storm of March, 1966 shut down schools, and nearly the entire city. Driving snowmobiles (and those vehicles were not numerous back then) the police pulled toboggans behind them to transport doctors to emergencies.

When the snow stopped, youngsters, who could get out of their homes, reveled in the snow, sliding down the drifts, pelting each other with snowballs, and playing until their mittens were soaked or they were exhausted. The next week, "kids had fun climbing up the snow banks onto the roofs of the school (it shows this in the pictures.)"

Even as the sun shone, the infirm, the elderly, and single mothers with young children rang emergency numbers for help. My brother, with friends and shovels loaded in his car that had been parked near a main street, went to a dozen homes with supplies from emergency centers. In most cases, their first job at the addresses was to shovel the drifts from doors that could not be pushed open from the inside.

My favorite anecdote from Bill's account was his telling about his car accident. "A week later using my car for work," he writes, "I moved over to let another car go by in the single lane on the street, and moved into a snow bank. Unfortunately there was still a car underneath all that snow."

People are more important than cars. I'm glad Bill had something solid under his wheels.

Bill said more in his email, and expressed it with more eloquence and greater emotion than my second-hand job does. But since I wanted to let my readers see a newscast without my infringing on their copyright, I had to give you a heads up before presenting this link.

                                                                              
  http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=877426&playlistId=1.1181312&binId=1.816090&playlistPageNum=1 
  



     

 

Ten Catbite Turnarounds -- by KittyCat

I’ll say it straight out. I'm guilty. I bit Mom. I won’t do like Snookie and go on and on with boring details.  

But you know what? Mom says good stuff can come from bad. Sure enough, I came up with seventeen good things, but Mom tells writers they gotta use snappy numbers. Blah, numbers. So who got good stuff out of teeny toothmarks? (You can count if you want to.)

Mom. Right! She’s at the top of the list. I’ve watched baseball with Dad. Mom pitched a triple play and didn’t even know it. See, like most folks we know, Mom only goes to the doctor for regular appointments or when she feels like “death warmed over.” She’s had sinus all winter—felt yukky, had headaches, and even fever. One day she said she was running out of snake oil, and might need to see the doctor, but then she didn’t. The pills are getting rid of her bite germs and sinus stuff, too. On top of that, the lab took her blood while she was there, so she doesn’t have to go back for her “vampire appointment.”

 It could save her time in the future. See, if a baby kitten comes by, she’ll call everybody she knows, and write letters, and make special visits trying to find that baby a home. Well, the doctor announced his thoughts about cats. –One less call for Mom to make if and when.

 Mom got lots of practice using her left hand, and that’s good, cuz if she ever breaks her arm and has to use her left hand to eat, she won’t stick the fork in her nose instead of her mouth.

Mom skipped church on Sunday cuz the germ pills almost give her the pukes. (That’s not her word for it, but Snookie isn’t here to spell stuff for me.) Anyhow Mom had a fun day. Using the computer and mouse, she went to Victoria Beach in Manitoba. Then she phoned Michelle, one of my human cousins, to find stuff there, and even got to see Michelle’s house—well, the roof. I guess that was cool, cuz Mom didn’t get to see the roof when she went to Michelle’s a couple of years ago.

Moneywise Dad won big this weekend. He and Mom went shopping together. Usually he’ll buy more expensive things than she’ll buy herself. This time, though, nearly everything Mom looked at was made in China, and she wouldn’t have any of it.

Maybe it’s not a big huge win for the country, but when enough people like Mom write and tell companies what they think, things get turned around.

Since Mom had trouble typing, she didn't try to work, so I got lots of attention all weekend. And I’ll have all the girls purring up to me in a couple of months. Mom planted a big pot of catnip. When I go to Lubbock to see L’il Bit...well, to put it in human terms, think of a gal who sees everything she could want in a man, and he comes bringing roses.

There’s more good from the bad stuff, but Mom says “close with a zinger.” What’s better than catnip?

(c) 2012, Bernice W. Simpson