Buried Treasure in Winter Snow

If you live in a warm or even mild climate, you probably think crankyjewishguy (CJG) and his fellow New Englanders spend their winters gamboling across the countryside sipping hot cocoa and admiring downy white snow that makes the world seem as cozy as a snow globe on January Jones's dresser. Something like this perhaps:

But it's not like that at all. Oh, maybe for a few hours after the snow falls the world looks as pure as Snow White on her wedding day, but after that the snow turns black from car exhaust. And after that, when it all starts to melt, you get scenes like this:

You see, when a big storm bears down and the sanitation department can't pick up the trash, it sits there under the snow, maybe even for weeks during a bad winter. In New York this week, as the snow has receded, people have found garbage, rats in soda cans, bikes, sludge and even human bodies on the sidewalks and in cars that were buried by the blizzard. Inspired by what sounded like a great opportunity to find something valuable, or just plain interesting, CJG spent a day walking through Boston to see what he might find buried in the snow and, boy, was he ever rewarded...big time.

For example, down near Northeastern University he found this next to a parked car:

At first, CJG thought it was his Uncle Stu who had wandered away from his assisted living facility, but later discovered it's a rare Egyptian mummy that was being delivered to the Museum of Fine Arts and apparently fell off the delivery truck.

Then, CJG stumbled onto this amazing find:

It was inside an envelope postmarked in Philadelphia in 1776 and addressed to John Adams, Peacefields, Quincy, Mass., but marked "Return to Sender: Insufficient Postage." CJG has dried it out and posted a message on Craigslist seeking descendants of the original sender.

But nothing surprised CJG more than to find this adorable fellow nearly frozen to death in a snow bank near Fenway Park. CJG has since thawed the grateful little guy out in his microwave and put him on a plane back to L.A. to resume his acting career. Good grief, winter really does suck.