CJG has lived in Massachusetts for about forty years now and he's seen what, maybe 300 or 350 significant snowstorms in that time, and only once that he can recall, during the famous Blizzard of '78, was it an inconvenience that lasted more than a day, and usually it's less than that. Typically, after a few hours, you can get to the grocery store or, if the local newscasters haven't scared you into a fatal cardiac arrest, to the emergency room for medical attention. It snows in New England. Sometimes it snows a lot. We've been through this drill before. And yet, every time the forecast calls for six inches of snow or more you can sense the panic rising and the local news stations kicking into high gear.
For example, apparently CJG and his family are the only people in greater Boston who keep more than enough food around to get through lunchtime tomorrow. This is why, a day before the storm, the supermarket parking lot looks like the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour as panicked shoppers stock up for the big event. Here's a picture outside CJG's local market taken just before the last snowstorm which dumped six inches of snow on the Boston area:
Last night, local news stations started running their wall to wall special reports headlined "This Could Be It," or "The Monster Blizzard of 2011," or "Run for Your Lives, It's About to Snow." Later today they will dispatch reporters to stand dangerously close to slippery highways to give the exact same report everyone has seen a thousand times before and the only thing that will hold your interest is waiting to see if someone, blinded by the klieg lights, loses control of their car and starts careening towards the reporter who will, inevitably, have his or her back turned to the fast moving traffic. And it will be fast because even though the roads may be slick, everyone remembers the Blizzard of '78 when thousands of cars were abandoned on Route 128, a ring road around the city, and they want to get home and make sure the cupboard isn't bare. For those too young to remember, or who weren't living in these parts back then, this is what it looked like 33 years ago on Route 128:
Yeah, it was a mess and for a full week private automobile travel was banned throughout a good portion of eastern Massachusetts which meant people were walking or skiing to the store and pulling their groceries home on sleds. It was like living in a Currier & Ives Christmas card for a while, but it got old quickly. This why every mention of six inches of snow sends people into a frenzy, even 33 years later.
In any event, once we're a few hours into today's storm, and just when everyone thinks the saturation coverage of snow falling in tiny white flakes from the sky can't get any more redundant, there will be footage of a plane being de-iced at Logan Airport and of snowplows pushing and piling snow in various places around the city. The reporters will stick microphones through the window of a plow and ask the operator how it's going. Since it's cold the plow operator will appear to be breathing fire as his warm breath meets the frigid air and he'll say something in a "wicked hahd" Boston accent that no one will understand because NewsCenterPanic hasn't thought about subtitles. But, everyone will be able to infer that he's saying something like, "it's snowing and my job is to move it from here to there."
So, CJG is going to sign off now, before the roads become impassable, and head out to the market for marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate bars because it's gonna' be a three S'more kind of day. And while he's there he's just gonna pick up a few other sundries -- some bottled water, duct tape, a first aid kit and six weeks worth of canned food, if the survivalists haven't emptied the shelves already.
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