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The Magic of Babies. And a Baptism

07 Monday Jul 2014

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Frank Baptism

Family Gathering.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

Family can surprise you sometimes. Just when you think that everyone is acting childish with their petty disputes and slights over nothing, they can come together and act like, well, a family!

This was brought home to me recently when my grandson, Bryce, was baptized. Members of the family who had not seen each other for years all showed up, and seemed to enjoy each other’s company. People who don’t talk to one another did. And I have to think that there is some magic in a baby‘s baptism.

Baptism is where a child is initiated into the family faith. The family gathers together for it, and celebrates the new family member. It’s sort of a Christian coming-out party. I think that every religion has an equivalent. The iconic image from “The Lion King,” with the child being held overhead, is of the same cloth.

Bryce seemed to enjoy all the attention and suffered the pouring of water over him with barely a peep. I think his only complaint was that he didn’t get his full bath. The boy loves his bath.Bryce (Frank) Bryce also loves being held, and there was a whole room full of family members eager to accommodate him.

Bryce had another baptism of sorts the day before. He attended his first Yankees game. I think there is a religious aspect of that as well.

So now Bryce is all baptized and seems to be enjoying life at nearly five months. He was all smiles at his baptism. And his grandfather is enjoying the healing effect a baby has on a family. It seems that the innocence of a child can bring out in people what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” It’s a wonderful thing to see.

Happy Mother’s Day to Mom and Her “…isms”

08 Thursday May 2014

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My brother (top), my mother, and me.

BY BOB SMITH

Why, when we were kids, did our mothers all seem to say the same things to us? Was there a playbook, or were they just passing on the same things their moms had said to them? Are mothers today reading from that same script, or have new momisms crept into the lexicon?

In any event, in honor of Mother’s Day, here are a few of my mom’s classic zingers:

I’d done something stupid like smashed a lamp with a baseball bat or duct-taped my little sister’s hand to the coffee table, and Mom had caught me (and crying little sister) red-handed.

“What’s this, Bobby? What did you do? You wait till your father gets home.”

Just that ominous, amorphous threat. No spanking; no banishment to my bedroom for the rest of the day (which would have been real punishment). This was the 1960s, after all, long before smartphones, computers with Internet, TV’s, and video games had turned kids’ bedrooms into electronic pleasure arcades. My bedroom was furnished with my bed, my brother’s bed, two nightstands with lamps, a dresser, and a shared electric alarm clock. That’s it – not even a radio. If you were sent to your room, you could read all day, or count the cracks in the ceiling, but little else.

For a sensitive, impressionable eight year old like me, delayed sanctions were an incredibly effective tactic. First I felt guilty because although I’d done wrong, Mom hadn’t yet punished me directly. But then the mental punishment set in. I stood in the shadows by the side of our house waiting for the endless afternoon hours to tick by, steeped in guilty thoughts and vague, free-form anxiety about the expected retribution at Dad’s hands. I wanted the time to pass, so it would be over with, but there was no relief.

When Dad finally got home I trudged into the kitchen and stood staring at my sneakers, expecting the worst. And Mom said nothing. The crime was forgotten! I looked at Mom, and she nodded knowingly at me – she hadn’t forgotten at all. This time around, my only punishment had been the agonizing anticipation of punishment, unfulfilled. We both knew that the next time I did wrong, she could make me suffer all day, and then either stay execution again, or drop the dad-hammer on me anyway. And I owed her one for this time, too. Brilliant.

Here’s another favorite: Two or three of us were fooling around, throwing sofa seat cushions at each other, and Mom shut us down.

“What’re you kids doing? Those aren’t toys. Put those cushions back right now.”

Chastened, we started gathering up the pillows, and out of nervousness or just a frivolity hangover, I started giggling uncontrollably. Mom didn’t appreciate my attitude.

“What’re you laughin’ at? You’ll be laughing out the other side of your mouth in a minute!”

What does that even mean? I thought it meant she’d smack me (“I’ll smack you one!”), thereby displacing the grin from half my face. This called to mind the incongruous image of one side of my face laughing while the other side streamed tears, which I tried to emulate by simultaneously frowning on one side and laughing archly on the other, which made me laugh even more.

Which brought on the next momism: “You better wipe that smile off your face, young man.”

Which I emulated by theatrically swiping my hand down the “laughing” side of my face, which made me laugh more still. Which resulted in Mom giving me a sharp smack across my bottom, which made me really cry with my whole face. She hadn’t hit me all that hard. I was crying more out of shame, and surprise, than pain. Which prompted the next momism:

“What’re you cryin for? Come here, I’ll give you something to cry about.”

Which finally shut me up. And one of my all time favorites, for whenever one of us couldn’t find something that was right in front of us, as in this classic case of refrigerator blindness:

“Bobby, grab the mayonnaise.”

“I can’t find it,” I mumbled, staring listlessly into the open refrigerator.

“It’s right here,” Mom snapped, brushing past me to grab the jar screaming HELLMANN’S in big blue letters, front and center on the top shelf. “If it had teeth it would’ve bit you.” My brothers and sisters around the dinner table started giggling, and failing to wipe the smiles off their faces, they were soon laughing out the other side of their mouths.

Out West, Where the Weather is Vertical

02 Friday May 2014

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BY FRANK TERRANELLA

One of the prime benefits of travel is to experience the unfamiliar. For example, if you want to see what it would be like to drive on the left side of the road, you need to travel to a British Commonwealth country. And if you want to see the Aurora Borealis, you need to travel to the far North.

Living in the New York area, we are accustomed to little variations in altitude. No matter where you start from, you never experience more than about a thousand-foot variation in altitude within 50 miles of New York. Even traveling to the nearby Pocono or Catskill “mountains” does not significantly change things. These are mere foothills compared to what they have in Colorado. In fact, the entire city of Denver is at a higher altitude than any of the peaks in the Catskills or Poconos.

So since New Yorkers have no concept of altitude, we don’t think of weather depending on altitude. This was brought home to me recently while traveling in Northern Arizona. We were driving from the Grand Canyon to Zion National Park in Utah. As we started our drive, it was raining lightly. This was fine for several hours, but then we began to climb up towards Zion, and suddenly, as we crossed over 7,000 feet, we were in a ferocious snowstorm.

photo 2

This lasted only until we descended down to 5,000 feet, and then it was light rain again. We were seeing first-hand that weather is vertical. That’s why out West, the weather forecasts don’t simply say that such-and-such an area will have certain weather. They say that the weather will be X, but above 6,000 feet it will be Y, and above 7,000 feet it will be Z. And this is all in the same town! We just don’t have weather like that in the New York area. Our weather is horizontal, not vertical.

The next day, it was a beautiful sunny day as we began our drive in Zion National Park at an altitude of about 6,000 feet. We were on a short drive to a mountain lake. As the road began to climb, we noticed that the temperature was dropping. At 6,000 feet it was 55 degrees. By the time we got to 8,000 feet it was 34 degrees. But the biggest shock was that, in 30 minutes, the terrain went from a green springtime pasture to a snow-covered winter wonderland.

The road actually became impassable with snow, and we had to turn around and go back, or risk being stuck there. Yes, weather is vertical out West, and that’s a foreign mindset for many of us. But experiencing the foreign is why we travel. And it’s usually a lot of fun!

Rock Art in Sedona

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

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Sedona, Arizona.

Sedona, Arizona.

Our resident blogger, Frank Terranella, is on a road trip out West. Before he left, we asked that he send photos so that we could experience his experience vicariously. This one shows one of the rock formations in Sedona, Arizona.

“What intrigued me is the bird-like figure in the rock,” he wrote. “I have no idea who did this, or if anyone did it.”

An Epitaph for a Friend

28 Monday Apr 2014

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BY BOB SMITH

As we move into our 50s and 60s, and beyond, the loss of old friends becomes a regular part of life. Liver cancer recently took Little Richie, a kid I knew who was a year ahead of me in high school. This is my personal epitaph for him.

Richie was short and skinny – barely five foot two and 90 pounds, on tiptoes, soaking wet. But he wore his black hair in a dramatic pompadour that added at least three inches in height, and his personality made up for the rest. Richie not only acted like he didn’t realize he was small, he came on like the biggest, baddest guy in the room.

That’s not to say that no one stood up to him – every few months, Richie would show up sporting a black eye that told us he’d pushed some over-muscled classmate a bit too far, and paid the price. But if you weren’t willing to resort to brute physical force, Richie would mercilessly rule you with his cackling laugh and caustic wit. Even after they’d pounded him, Richie would mock the guys who’d beaten him up for not having had the guts to pick on someone their own size.

Despite his “little guy” scrappiness, we liked Richie. He was generous, and would readily share his cigarettes or beer or whatever with you. And if you needed to borrow 10 bucks, Richie was right there.

And he was the best poker player I’ve ever seen, hands down. During summer vacations in high school, my brother, and a few of our friends, including Little Richie, would walk to the local golf course in the early morning to “catch a loop.” At the end of the day, with 20 or 30 dollars’ worth of caddying money in our pockets, we’d stop off in the woods at the end of our block for some dime-ante poker. With a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, Little Richie would crisply shuffle the deck and snap out cards to each of us, accompanied by incisive commentary.

“Five – no help. Three – total pond water. Deuces – not wild, sucker! Big queen – three to the straight. On you, Bobby. You gonna bet that shit, or check to the guys with balls?”

He would loudly analyze everyone’s cards, and if you took his comments to heart, he could goad you into betting or shame you into quiet submission. If you listened to Little Richie, you were playing his game, and you were doomed.

More than once, I’d seen him on a terrible losing streak, down 20 dollars, or more (in a dime-ante game, that was a lot of money), and then suddenly he’d change the course of the game just by the force of will. He’d bluff everyone out, and take big pots of money he didn’t deserve – taunting us at the end by turning over his cards with a flourish.

“A measly pair a threes! I had shit,” he laughed as he raked in the cash. “You pussies!”

The next hand he’d bluster, and bet so extravagantly we were sure it was another bluff, so we’d all stay in, feeding the pot, and he’d pull out a powerhouse hand, and win again. When he was on those runs he played as if possessed. And even though it was costing me money, it was thrilling – like watching a tightrope walker dancing on the wire who gets to the other side, then turns around and does it again and again.

After high school, everyone drifted off to college or full time jobs, and we lost touch with Little Richie. He appeared one summer afternoon in the ’90s, pulling up in a super-expensive, brand new metallic blue Corvette. He clambered out through the open T-top looking gaunt, his black hair windswept and frazzled.

“How ya doin, Bobby?”

“Richie – hey! Great. Nice car. What’re you up to?”

“Real estate. Project development, that kind of shit,” he rattled on about deals and margins and how he had lots of irons in the fire.

He had that coke-addict look, racing along in his own dimension, while the rest of us in the real world were slogging by at half speed. As he flicked open his silver Zippo lighter to fire up a smoke, you could see a hint of a tremor in his hand. He took off after a few minutes, promising to come by again soon. I never saw him again.

Some said it was his dabbling in heroin that messed up his liver. Who knows. I just know that if there’s an afterlife, Little Richie is there madly hustling someone or something, and busting everyone’s chops. And probably getting his ass kicked for it.

My “Youth-of-Old-Age” Days are Numbered

24 Thursday Apr 2014

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BY BOB SMITH

At the gym the other day, I overheard a woman complaining that it was her birthday again, and that it seemed as if she had just turned 40 six months ago.  I assume this meant she was turning 50, which was confirmed when her male friend offered this consolation:

“They say 40 is the old age of youth, but 50 is the youth of old age.”

The quote is attributed to the famous French writer Victor Hugo, but I don’t think the guy at the gym had any idea of its source.  He just liked the way it sounded, and thought it would comfort his friend as she turned 50.

The logic of the Hugo quote seems completely accurate, and it even seems to apply to the rest of your life. Let’s ignore the years from 0 to 20 as “childhood.” (You might break it down to “infancy” from 0 – 3, “childhood” from 3 – 11, and “young adulthood” from 12 – 20, but all that’s so far in the past, does it really matter?)

Most of us would agree that in your 20s, you’re enjoying “youth.” Anything is possible. You have limitless energy, and your career and life could go in any direction you choose. The decade flies by and you make whatever choices you make – maybe commit to a partner and/or job, and settle down a bit.  But you’re barely a full-fledged adult – after all, you can still vividly recall your teens.

Then come your 30s – the middle age of youth, when you still feel like you’re 20-something, but you’ve acquired added responsibilities, and a propensity for gaining weight, that belie that. Then you turn 40, still feeling like you’re in your mid-30s, but aches and pains creep in here and there, and that propensity for gaining weight you’d noted in your 30s has turned into a 15-pound bulge that stubbornly clings to your waistline, butt, and/or thighs that won’t budge without a serious commitment to eating less, and exercising more. A lot less. And a lot more. You’re still considered young, but you’re pushing the boundary – you’re in the old age of youth.

Then come the 50s. Whatever was going wrong in your 40s, if you didn’t fix it somehow before turning 50, becomes institutionalized.  If you were fat, you get a little fatter.  If you had aches and pains occasionally, they become chronic.  White hair gets whiter, sparse hair sparser, ear and nose hair coarser. You can still do pretty much everything you used to do, only more slowly and less often. It’s the youth of old age because you’re not really old, and hey, for your age, you look pretty good!

But as I approach 60 this September, the quote is ominous because if my 50s were the youth of my old age, my 60s will be the middle age of old age.  And then at 70, I’ll be just plain old. And suppose I live into my 80s or beyond? What’s that – advanced old age?

So the end of the youth of my old age feels significant because it’s the last time I’ll be able to describe myself as any form of “youth.”

But what’s the big deal?  Part of the beauty of getting older is that, out of necessity, you learn how to roll with the punches. I’ll take it in stride, just as I have every other milestone year until now. 

Like Francis Bacon, “I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.”

And as Mark Twain said, “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

As long as I’m reasonably cogent and ambulatory, I really don’t mind at all.

The Pursuit of the Perfect Easter Egg Hunt

17 Thursday Apr 2014

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Easter Bob

All the eggs in one basket.

BY BOB SMITH

When our kids were little – like 7, 5, and 1 – we started a tradition of hiding eggs for them to find on Easter morning. Vincent was too small to participate that year, but Bobby and Abby happily ran around the living room, dining room, and family room ferreting out the colored hard-boiled eggs Maria and I had hidden the night before under sofa cushions, on top of picture frames, and on the windowsills behind the drapes.

But trouble quickly developed. Bobby, older and by nature more competitive, discovered twice as many as Abby, and quickly exhausted the cache of eggs to be found. He proudly displayed the eight eggs that were “his” as Abby mournfully moped over her paltry three. And to top it off, Abby had found the “rotten egg” – the one egg we deliberately made ugly by dipping it repeatedly into each of the red, green, yellow, and blue dye cups until it was a nauseating, mottled gray-brown. Finding that egg was not a good thing.

We quickly moved on from real eggs to fake eggs for the Easter morning hunt, and relegated the “rotten egg” to a place of shame in the center of the communal Easter basket on the dining room table. The “eggs” we now hid were plastic, and came in festive spring colors. Approximately the size of real eggs, they snapped apart into two pieces at the middle so you could fill them with jelly beans, M&M’s, or Hershey’s Kisses. These were immensely popular with the kids, because whoever found the most eggs got the most candy.

And again, the two older kids (now 9 and 7 to Vincent’s 3) dominated the finding-game, with Bobby edging out Abby by a fairly wide margin. Because Vincent was so small we convinced the older two to leave a few eggs behind for him, lest he be left with nothing.

But the system was still flawed.

After only one season using that model, we started labeling the plastic eggs with a dot of masking tape on each with a handwritten “B,” “A,” or “V” so each kid would know whose eggs were whose. If you found someone else’s egg, you left it in place and could taunt your sibling when they had a hard time finding it. Anyone unlucky enough to have eggs still hidden when the other two had found all theirs had to endure the “you’re getting warm … warmer … now cooler, etc.” game to locate their final eggs.

As the kids got a little older, mere candy in the eggs wasn’t sufficient inducement for the hunt, so we started loading the eggs with money. Because of fierce sibling rivalry, we strictly counted out the same number of eggs for each kid and distributed the same amount of money among their eggs. I think we started with a total of $20 per kid when they were smaller, and progressed to a total of $50 in each kid’s eggs every year.

But shortly after we started with the plastic eggs, there was a year when even Maria and I couldn’t remember where we had hidden them all, resulting in a frustrating 15 minutes that Easter morning with the whole family poking around under the furniture.

The next year we kept a detailed list. Late on Easter Eve, Maria and I filled the plastic eggs with cash and candy and then walked around the house together, one of us with a basket of labeled eggs for hiding, and the other following with a legal pad and pen, noting the location of every egg in each room.

It had taken us a number of years, but at last we had a foolproof egg-hiding system. It was fair, because the kids all got the same number of eggs and quantity of cash, and their eggs were labeled so no one could poach. And because of our master list, no one got shorted even if Maria and I were too muddled to remember where the heck we’d squirreled away all those eggs.

Soon the kids were all teenagers, going through the motions of enjoying the Easter morning egg hunt just to please us. They were in it only for the cash. Sometimes one or all of them wouldn’t even roll out of bed until almost noon, leaving no time for the egg hunt before Maria and I had to start preparing Easter dinner. Eventually the tradition died away entirely, and we just gave each of them Easter cards with a little cash gift.

But should grandchildren ever appear at our house on Easter, we’ll be ready. I’m sure those plastic eggs are someplace in the basement, too. I just have to find them.

A Courtroom Stop on Our Nationwide Trek

15 Tuesday Apr 2014

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Mockingbird pic

The courthouse in Monroeville, Alabama, which was recreated in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

There are a lot of lawyer stories on television, and in movies. Most of them are not very flattering. I think of TV shows like “L.A. Law” and “The Good Wife.” Lawyers are often called upon to do the most unpleasant things for us. They sometimes have to act like monsters, so we don’t have to. It’s no wonder the public has such a poor perception of lawyers. And yet, the practice of law can be an honorable, even a noble, profession.

Exhibit A is a Southern lawyer with the unlikely name of Atticus Finch, the protagonist of Harper Lee’s book, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Now, there is no nobler lawyer in American literature than Atticus Finch. His demeanor, intelligence and ethical values are what many lawyers aspire to, but seldom match.

Atticus doesn’t want his children to have guns and doesn’t have a gun in his house, but when a rabid dog needs to be put down, the police chief calls on “deadeye” Atticus to make the shot. He accepts payment from poor farmers in produce. He is known far and wide as a fair man. That reputation gets him appointed counsel for a client that no one else would represent – a poor black man in Depression-era Alabama, who is accused of raping a white girl.

If you’ve seen the marvelous 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck, no further explanation of the story is needed. If you haven’t, I envy you the thrill of meeting Atticus Finch for the first time.

A few years ago, my wife and I were touring the Southeast as part of our decade-long plan to visit every state in the nation. We learned that the courthouse in Monroeville, Alabama was the one that was recreated in Hollywood for the movie. That’s because Monroeville is the home, to this day, of Harper Lee. She grew up just a couple of blocks away.

As we headed South on I-65 from Montgomery on our way to New Orleans, we took a slight detour to visit the old Monroe County Courthouse. It’s now a museum, full of items that lawyers of Atticus Finch’s time would have used. The museum is nice, but the star attraction is the old courtroom itself. It looks exactly like the movie, since Henry Bumstead, the art director on the film, came there, and took pictures, and made drawings, so that he could reproduce it in Hollywood.

As you walk into the courtroom, you can just imagine yourself in a scene from the movie. Fortunately, it is possible to climb the stairs up to the balcony, where the less prominent citizens, including children, could watch the proceedings.

In the story, Jem and Scout (children of Atticus), and their friend Dill (who Harper Lee based on her childhood friend Truman Capote), sit on the floor of the balcony, dangling their legs through the wooden supports that make up the balcony railing. The accused’s family sits nearby, along with their minister. Pat at Mockingbird My wife and I were able to sit and get a Scout’s-eye view of the courtroom. It was a surprisingly moving experience.

But that’s the power of good storytelling.

And they do more than just have the setting for “To Kill a Mockingbird” in Monroeville. Every summer, they actually populate the courthouse with actors, and put on a play-version of the story. The audience gets to sit in the spectator portion of the courtroom, while the actors stage the trial. It’s the hottest ticket in Alabama.

In the story, Atticus puts on a splendid defense for his client, Tom Robinson, after which, with head held high, he packs up his briefcase and heads for the door. Tom Robinson’s family waits for Atticus to gather his things and stands in silence while he walks to the exit. In a show of the depth of the respect for Atticus in the community, the minister prods the Finch children to, “Stand up. Your father’s passing.”

Can you imagine a lawyer today being that beloved?

Want a Classy Name? Put an “E” on It

11 Friday Apr 2014

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Bob estates

BY BOB SMITH

The people who name residential and retail developments always pick names that sound classy – or at least that they think will sound classy to the rest of us. For instance, if there’s a stream of any kind flowing near the property, they include the term “brook” in the title. And if they really want to be fancy, they spell it “brooke.” They seem to think that the linguistic extravagance of having a useless, silent vowel at the ends of words screams opulence:

“Hey – we know there’s an extraneous ‘e’ there, but dammit, we can afford it.”

If there’s a bridge across the “brooke,” then the namer has two choices. The first is to coin a “bridge” word by pairing it with any descriptive, or other cool-sounding term (e.g., Woodbridge, Westbridge, Longbridge, Cambridge, Bumbridge, etc.). The beauty of “bridge” is that it comes with its own silent, trailing “e,” so it pairs well with the other pretentious words in the name.

Then couple your newly-minted, “bridge” word with another term that purports to describe the nature of the homes being offered for sale, such as “Estates,” “Manor,” or the highfalutin, “Mews.” I can see “Estates” and “Manor” evoking luxury, since both terms refer to pieces of real estate owned by feudal lords – although I doubt any self-respecting lord, feudal or otherwise, would stoop to live in a McMansion on a quarter-acre lot in New Jersey.

But “mews?” In British usage, the word means stables built around a small street, or a street having small apartments converted from such stables, neither of which seem like particularly enviable places to live, unless you’re a horse. On the other hand, it could make for a pleasant-sounding, vaguely evocative name:”Neighbridge Mews.”

The other option for naming a development, including any kind of bridge, is to pick an upscale term for “bridge,” and feature that up front: “The Crossings at _____.” You could even double down on the bridge theme, and construct a name like, “The Crossings at Neighbridge Mews.” Or throw in another extra “e” word for good measure: “The Crossings at Neighbridge Mews Pointe.” Fun, isn’t it?

The same basic rules apply to naming retail areas: “old” becomes “olde,” “center” is “centre,” and “town” becomes “towne.” They’re all pronounced the same as the lower-class versions, but because of the trailing “e,” they’re classier, and just plain better. And of course, if there are any stores in the center of this old town, they’re not “shops,” but “shoppes.”

Here’s the lineup the developers want you to expect, depending on the spelling:

Olde Brooke Towne Centre Shoppes: Tiffany jewelry store, yogalates studio, organic vegan wrap and smoothie bar, a full-menu Starbucks, and hand-crafted, boutique clothing by Zoe, tastefully presented in an exclusive, village-like cluster of gleaming mahogany and glass storefronts. All on the banks of a pristine stream filled with darting minnows, dotted with stepping stones, and spanned by a carved teak footbridge.

Old Brook Town Center Shops: a 1970s vintage strip mall featuring, Pawn It – We Buy Gold, a mani/pedi joint called Nail Me, deli/newsstand, 24-hour laundromat, and a concrete bunker with welded steel cages on the windows and the words, “Check Cashing / Payday Loans,” in five-foot-high letters dominating the entire side wall of the building.

The bail bondsman’s office is just around the corner, downstairs from the Happy Lucky Massage Parlor, and next door to the Amble Inn Bar. All bordered by a weedy trench, filled with sludgy goop sprouting a rusting refrigerator door, old sneakers, and puddles of fluorescent fluid, that in some alternate universe passes for water.

Where would you rather shoppe? Pointe taken.

Hold the Flowers. It Might Snow

10 Thursday Apr 2014

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flowers in snow

Springtime in New Jersey.

BY ANTHONY BUCCINO

When cherry blossoms bloom in Belleville Park, it’s time to put away the snow blower. Usually by this time of April, in Belleville and Nutley, we watch the falling cherry blossoms and think, oh, they’re like little pink snowflakes. But this year, things have changed. We predict snow falling just once more.

Can anyone blame us? It seems like we’ve endured the winter of “Dr. Zhivago” here in the Northeast. Don’t bother me with the old, “We’ve had worse winters with more snow.”

That’s all ancient history. What matters is right here, right now. Will it snow again before the May flowers bloom?

This was the winter we finally made up our mind that we were going to do it. Yup, this was going to be the year of the snow blower for us. Too bad we dallied when we should have dillied. We got hit with the first snow storm before we made it to the store. As soon as we recovered from shoveling, and clearing our driveway apron a few times, we headed to the nearby big box store.

It was easy to spot the snow blower section. It was the rows of empty racks with little picture cards of what snow blowers would look like if they had any in stock. Stealthily, we eavesdropped as the man in the orange apron explained to a befuddled snow-shoveler the subtle differences between the petite, sissy snow throwers, and the humongous, super-charged blowers that will toss snow over your rooftop onto the path of that annoying neighbor so he’ll think it’s still snowing.

As soon as that dolt shuffled off, it was our turn to be tutored. The man in the orange apron patiently went through the differences between the wimpy and the walloping snow movers.

You got your sizes: 21″, 24″, 28″, 30″. You got your stages: Single-stage, gas-quick, chute snow blower; two-stage, electric-start gas, and three-stage, electric-start gas. You got your accessories: heated handle, shear pin kit, clean-out spade tool, silicone lubricant, snow blower cover, engine additive – fuel stabilizer, oil – synthetic, gasoline, and a heavy-duty, floor-protective mat.

And while we actually began to understand what he was saying, in the end, there were none in the store. He suggested we order online.

We hadn’t been that excited tracking a delivery in 33 years. This time they delivered it to our door. The crates go to a local service shop for assembly, and then delivery to eager new parents, er, owners. We have to say the guy was thorough explaining everything from the forward speeds, reverse, chute direction, on-off switch, pump-primer, pull cord, and where the extra shear pins were for when our big blade tries to throw the ice block of our newspaper.

Dang. We couldn’t wait for it to snow. And so it snowed.

Dang. We couldn’t wait for it to stop snowing.

For years, whenever it snowed, we’d wait until our neighbor finished snow blowing his walks, then he’d hand it off, still running. He moved down the Shore last year, and we couldn’t really expect him to bring his snow blower up, and clear the snow for the new owner, now, could we? They were nice neighbors, but, apparently, not that nice.

The perception is that a snow blower makes clearing snow easy and fun. And you’ll be so popular with your neighbors when you do their walks because, no, you’re not a nice guy, you haven’t figured how to stop, and turn around, so you go all the way around the block.

The reality is that it’s more like plowing the south 40 acres behind an ornery mule. It’s great on a straight run, but try turning that baby, or backing up, or squeaking past the cars parked in the driveway. Not to mention the trudge across the deep snow to the storage shed to get out a shovel to clear out the doorway to get the snow blower out to start it. Yikes.

And don’t forget the fun clearing the driveway apron over and over with each pass of the town plow. We’re sure the plows carry an additive that makes apron snow heavier, colder and wetter than real snow anywhere else.

After several snow falls, we’d worn a path through the snow to the shed. Our technique in clearing apron snow has been nominated for an award for our precision directing the chute to toss across our cleared walk, and create a four-foot decorative berm on our lawn.

Sure, we’ve had worse winters. One winter started so early the autumn leaves weren’t cleared until March along with the wooden-stick deer and Santa ornaments on our lawn. That was then. This is now. When this last spring snow falls, we’ll be right over to do your walk. As soon as we remember how to start this thing. anthony snowblower