Why I Hate the Snow
Dec. 6th, 2009 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraSo I had my first experience with driving through the snow yesterday. This involved me being a parade marshal, leading a big line of cars up the big hill from Ithaca at approximately 35 miles per hour. The other drivers were none too pleased, but this being night and a two lane road, I decided, Fuck ‘em. My one big fear, actually, was that Bambi, having weathered the recent hunting season unharmed, might decide this was the perfect time to visit one of his few surviving cousins on the opposite side of the highway. He didn’t; I lived.
I am not down with this winter wonderland shit.
I used to like snow just fine, but then about 30 years ago I went on that cross country ski trip with Ann and Joe and Dan. I survived that too but it was touch and go for a while there – a freak storm came up out of no where, closing the Golden Gate Bridge for the very first time back in the Bay Area and dumping four feet of snow in Yosemite. We lost the trail. Joe, our ostensible leader, had lied to the kindly park ranger, told him we were packing a tent when in fact we weren’t. So for three days we were out there in a blizzard, marching around by day to keep from freezing to death, huddling together in snow pits lined with branches by night. (Dan suggested we have group sex – “Not because I want to particularly. But it would keep us warm!”) At one point, completely snow blind, I skied off the top of a cliff and fell 30 feet, got completely buried in snow way over my head. I survived because before we left I’d checked a book out of the library on avalanches so knew enough to globe my hands around face and trap an air bubble so I could breath while my companions dug me out.
Eventually the park rangers found us, airlifted us out by helicopter. For years I kept a yellowing newspaper clipping from the Fresno daily rag describing our rescue next to the cash in my wallet to remind me how fragile it all is, this all is. But eventually it disappeared. (Today I keep a card given me in the old Venetian ghetto by a Hassidic rabbi in that same slot.) The only long term physical effect was moderate frostbite to my toes. The resulting neuropathy made my feet very ugly, so I never wear sandals if I can help it.
It’s very odd the things you think about when you know you’re going to die.
You think you’d ponder the Big Ticket items – the Meaning of Life, more specifically the Meaning of Your Life. But, in fact, all I could think of was the big stack of library books on my desk at home and whether anyone would bother to return them after I was dead. Oh, and I was obsessed with maintaining face in front of Ann and Joe and Dan. I’m a whiner and whimperer by nature, and I certainly whined and whimpered on our death march through the snow. But I wanted Ann and Joe and Dan to be aware that this was noble whining and whimpering, that they shouldn’t look down on me for whining and whimpering, that in fact whining and whimpering elevated me in some mysterious way.
Ann, on the other hand, was the epitome of stoic – so stoic that Joe proposed to her a few days after our misadventure. They’d been living together for a couple of years, so I’m not sure whether this was a surprise or not.
Eight years into their marriage he betrayed her in a way that was so horrible, so public, that it almost destroyed her. (It did destroy the other woman or at least the other woman committed suicide in a particularly gruesome way – she hooked herself up to an IV filled with barbiturates, and positioned herself in a place where Joe would find her – Ann and Joe were both doctors; the other woman was a nurse.) I saw Ann and Joe last at Ann’s fiftieth birthday party. They were friends again. Cordial, distant friends.
Still, on the whole, I think Ann might have been better off whining and whimpering like I did.
I am not down with this winter wonderland shit.
I used to like snow just fine, but then about 30 years ago I went on that cross country ski trip with Ann and Joe and Dan. I survived that too but it was touch and go for a while there – a freak storm came up out of no where, closing the Golden Gate Bridge for the very first time back in the Bay Area and dumping four feet of snow in Yosemite. We lost the trail. Joe, our ostensible leader, had lied to the kindly park ranger, told him we were packing a tent when in fact we weren’t. So for three days we were out there in a blizzard, marching around by day to keep from freezing to death, huddling together in snow pits lined with branches by night. (Dan suggested we have group sex – “Not because I want to particularly. But it would keep us warm!”) At one point, completely snow blind, I skied off the top of a cliff and fell 30 feet, got completely buried in snow way over my head. I survived because before we left I’d checked a book out of the library on avalanches so knew enough to globe my hands around face and trap an air bubble so I could breath while my companions dug me out.
Eventually the park rangers found us, airlifted us out by helicopter. For years I kept a yellowing newspaper clipping from the Fresno daily rag describing our rescue next to the cash in my wallet to remind me how fragile it all is, this all is. But eventually it disappeared. (Today I keep a card given me in the old Venetian ghetto by a Hassidic rabbi in that same slot.) The only long term physical effect was moderate frostbite to my toes. The resulting neuropathy made my feet very ugly, so I never wear sandals if I can help it.
It’s very odd the things you think about when you know you’re going to die.
You think you’d ponder the Big Ticket items – the Meaning of Life, more specifically the Meaning of Your Life. But, in fact, all I could think of was the big stack of library books on my desk at home and whether anyone would bother to return them after I was dead. Oh, and I was obsessed with maintaining face in front of Ann and Joe and Dan. I’m a whiner and whimperer by nature, and I certainly whined and whimpered on our death march through the snow. But I wanted Ann and Joe and Dan to be aware that this was noble whining and whimpering, that they shouldn’t look down on me for whining and whimpering, that in fact whining and whimpering elevated me in some mysterious way.
Ann, on the other hand, was the epitome of stoic – so stoic that Joe proposed to her a few days after our misadventure. They’d been living together for a couple of years, so I’m not sure whether this was a surprise or not.
Eight years into their marriage he betrayed her in a way that was so horrible, so public, that it almost destroyed her. (It did destroy the other woman or at least the other woman committed suicide in a particularly gruesome way – she hooked herself up to an IV filled with barbiturates, and positioned herself in a place where Joe would find her – Ann and Joe were both doctors; the other woman was a nurse.) I saw Ann and Joe last at Ann’s fiftieth birthday party. They were friends again. Cordial, distant friends.
Still, on the whole, I think Ann might have been better off whining and whimpering like I did.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-06 03:18 pm (UTC)You're kidding, right?
When I have time, I'll regale you with a few death defying snow-driving tales from my years on the road with bands, including blowouts at speed, black ice incidents, a trip across the Canadian Rockies in 40 below conditions with a busted heater, and the time we rolled the van on ice north of Lac La Biche and almost burned down the province of Alberta by setting an old tire on fire to keep from freezing while waiting for the tow truck.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-06 03:49 pm (UTC)When I have time, I'll regale you with a few death defying snow-driving tales
I'm holding you to that!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-06 06:58 pm (UTC)You do have snowtires, right? and some heavy stuff in the trunk? Kitty litter is traditional. :) Also helps get you out when you get stuck.
Also, I think if you have five people behind you, you have to pull over and let them go by.
But by all means, drive at the speed you feel safe.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-07 02:46 am (UTC)My car has front wheel drive so I don't think it will skid. But yr other points are well taken.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-11 09:03 pm (UTC)I second the suggestion of proper snow tires. If you are going to stay in the area, buy some cheap rims to mount them on and swap the set of wheels at the beginning and end of the season.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-13 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-06 07:56 pm (UTC)Ha ha. Perfect.
I was skimming this and saw something about the Golden Gate Bridge. For a little while, I was imagining your death march in the Marin Headlands, which made it an even more interesting story in an odd way.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-07 02:52 am (UTC)