I’d finished my work and was feeling cooped in and oppressed by the home renovation going on above me. So I threw the snowshoes into the car, and drove a half-hour to Mill Creek Canyon’s Elbow Fork. It was a perfect winter day: new snow, not a lot of people out, a partially-obscured sun to keep the temperature down. I’ve never felt more at peace than when I’m in the mountains, not hearing a single sound, surrounded by a pristine blanket of snow. If there’s a heaven, it looks like this to me.
The horror stories about all the “terrible” storms sweeping across America this (and every) winter chronically neglect to mention one thing: WINTER HAPPENS. I was always simulataneously amused and angered to hear TV news anchor people complaining on-air about the weather (especially to the meteorologist). “Can’t you do something about this cold?” “How about this snow we’re having?” Of course, the weather person is somewhat stunned because they’re not surprised at all by what’s happening and they know there’s nothing they can do about it. As a news director in my post-show critiques, I would let the anchor people know how stupid they sound when they say these things and tell them that if they don’t like the weather, don’t simply move: die. That’s your only alternative.
Lucky for me, I was born in the Chicago suburbs in which, back in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, there was enough snow
and cold to support outdoor sports like hockey, sledding, and skiing all winter long. In the past 30 years however (global warming?), Chicago winters have become simply cold, dark and damp: indistinguishable from Chicago springs.
As part of my life-long soliphiliacal search, I’ve wanted to live in places that had REAL winters as those I enjoyed as a kid. Having spent years in Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan and Vermont, I found Utah to have the best winters in America with the most recreational opportunities. If there’s a winter sport that’s been invented anywhere, they play it here. Utah didn’t host the 2002 Winter Olympics for nothing.
Like other northern states, we love winter and snow. It’s money. We love it so much that when we hear about snow in Florida, we wish it had fallen here instead of being wasted there. But I must admit it is sick pleasure to watch the news and see southerners spinning their sports car tires, shoveling their verandas, and brushing off their yard palms. And I don’t get angry anymore either when our local anchor people complain about the cold and snow here and “those poor folks in (name a southern state).” I laugh because, generally, stupid TV news people are merely amusing now and, specifically, I know the snow and cold in Utah don’t mean just closed schools, power outages, and widespread panic. They mean money, fun, peace, and a guarantee that no one from Florida will ever move here.
When will the corporate news media get over its demonization of winter and Nature and lay the responsibility for the chaos and destruction they cause where it belongs: on people? Never. Because in the dualist, Christian tradition, people are always the victims. Nature is either evil or the “hand of God” (whatever that means) smiting us for some bad thing we did (according to Pat Robertson). And God? My guess is he’s doing what I’m doing: laughing and enjoying Himself.
I have a lot of old vinyl record albums. Not as many as some people and not the ones everybody else has i.e. Dark Side of the Moon, the Beatles’ White Album, Hair. But unlike most album owners, I still have a turntable. While it’s fun to rev it up and give the old platters a listen occasionally, the turntable and the discs have just become space eaters. And now that we’re starting a major renovation of the house, I’ve finally undertaken the daunting task of recording all my old vinyl records digitally and getting rid of the originals.
