On reading my tongue-in-cheek take on the “most depressing day of the year” yesterday, George thought I was snowbound and losing my mind. I wasn’t, at least not the former—after a good hour-long session with shovel and snowblower, I excavated both our cars and went out for groceries yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, I learned a few things about driving in Massachusetts with this much snow.
First, your fellow drivers really don’t know how to drive in snow. They cut people off aggressively in slushy lanes, or else they drive 5 mph down perfectly dry pavement. Second, not every street is well plowed—at least not after two feet in 24 hours. The roads around Fresh Pond, never a joy at the best of times, were narrowed and slushy; Massachusetts Avenue from Harvard Square down to the river was essentially totally impassable, and I’ll need new shocks after jouncing my way down it. (Arlington, on the other hand, did a better job of plowing, apparently because they had wider streets on which to pile the snow.)
This morning I had a taste of the real joy of snow. Lisa had gone downstairs at 5:45 am to drive to Hartford for a client meeting, and came back up a few minutes later to ask me to get the snowblower out. Apparently the snowplows came by during the night and left another two foot by two foot drift at the mouth of our driveway. So I was out at 6 am violating noise ordinances so my wife could get to work. This is of course the flip side of Arlington’s superior plow capability.
It all starts to be a bit reminiscent of the Massachusetts Snow Diary (for the link to which I thank the comments section at Dr. David Weinberger’s blog. Apparently he has a slightly more sour take on the Massachusetts winter experience).