Wednesday, March 09, 2005

The Winter that Wouldn't Go Away

Without looking outside, you can always tell when Spring has sprung in Connecticut. The radio stations play "Here Comes the Sun" about once every hour. I smile, sing along, and hardly ever get tired of it.

But I haven't heard that song this year. Not once. "Little darlin', it's been a long, cold, lonely winter." Indeed. And it's not over yet. From today's "Hartford Courant":

Rain morphed into a windy snowstorm Tuesday that nearly paralyzed the evening commute on the state's highways.

Cars spun off roads, tractor-trailers jackknifed and school buses were stranded. Plows could only crawl.

"Basically, Hartford County is not moving. I kid you not," Mike Alan, a traffic reporter for WTIC-AM radio, 1080, said on the air at about 5:10 p.m.

But Hartford County was hardly alone.

"Crazy, crazy, crazy" is how a state police spokesman, Sgt. J. Paul Vance, described the state's highways. Police received about 200 calls reporting accidents between noon and 4:45 p.m., he said. Near whiteout conditions contributed to 130 accidents in just the first three hours of the storm.

A few reactions to my present affect:

From now on, I'll listen more closely to the groundhog report. No, not every guy named "Phil" has something profound to say. But the furry one in Pennsylvania? He's onto something.

"If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute or two." When he coined the expression that goes like that, Twain was living in Hartford. Although it applies to most other places I've been, the phrase belongs to New England first.

There's a lot that I love about Connecticut. You're halfway between New York and Boston; but in addition to the cities, you've got farms and suburbs, beaches and mountains, a wide variety, all very nearby. But sometimes a long winter will get me down. Today, I'd prefer to be somewhere well south of here.

I can't wait to sing with George. "Here comes the sun, (do-do do-do) Here comes the sun. And I say, It's all right . . . " Here it comes.

2 comments:

Steve said...

Weather report from the hills of Tennessee.

Yesterday, we got a dusting of snow. The mountians to the south looked like God has sprinkled them with powdered sugar.

Today we are in the 40's, Sunny but windy.

Atleast spring training is happening!

Frank Bellizzi said...

Steve and Dee,

I appreciate the updates. But, Dee, did yours have to be so glowing?