A record I wasn’t hoping for

Expectations are that, at some time this weekend, this winter's season snowfall will be sufficient to place us in the top ten snowiest winters. For the current record, I’ve lived in this state for five of the top ten winters. If we just bump the winter of 2017-18 [78.3 inches] then it will still have me here for 5/10 because of simple substitution. However, current winter #9 was in 1966-67, before my time here and only one tenth of an inch more than #10. So, if we end up with 78.5 or more inches, I’ll have lived in Minnesota for more than half of its top 10 snowiest winters. Had I know that could happen before I moved here, would I have? Given how I feel about winter, snow, and cold, it’s doubtful. It appears that I’ve done something terribly wrong in my life to end up with such karma but, other than moving here, it’s not clear what I might have done to deserve this. Did my move create a self-fulfilling prophecy? Am I confusing cause and effect? Will this winter ever end?

it just keeps coming down

Photo by J. Harrington

Since I am neither a meteorologist nor a climatologist, I don’t know if snow that falls after the end of meteorological winter (on or after March 1) is counted in the seasonal record, or if the record is actually based on the period between winter solstice and spring equinox, or, since in Minnesota it’s been know to snow every month of the year except July, the annual snowfall record is based on the period from July 1 through June 30 of the following year.

The flood forecasters have now chimed in with their concerns that moderate or more floods have more than a 50% probability in the Twin Cities and at Stillwater. The combination of snowfall records and flooding is a logical relationship that also relates to climate change/global warming (half or more top snowfalls in the past 5 decades). And yet our elected leaders have continued to play political games with timely responses to greenhouse gas reductions, just as they are currently playing brinksmanship games with the federal budget, debt ceiling and Social Security payments. Do you suppose the Republicans think they have nothing to fear from multitudes of gray-haired citizens whose palsied hands shake so much they would never seek retribution on politicians who stiffed them into hunger-laced homelessness? I hope we never have to find out. If those same seniors have children and grandchildren about whom they care, it could be fun to watch the Republican party get replaced by a Pewter (green/gray) Party by whatever name, perhaps the 7th GenerationParty?

After the Quarrel

Paul Laurence Dunbar - 1872-1906

So we, who've supped the self-same cup,
    To-night must lay our friendship by;
Your wrath has burned your judgment up,
    Hot breath has blown the ashes high.
You say that you are wronged— ah, well,
    I count that friendship poor, at best
A bauble, a mere bagatelle,
    That cannot stand so slight a test.

I fain would still have been your friend,
    And talked and laughed and loved with you;
But since it must, why, let it end;
    The false but dies, 't is not the true.
So we are favored, you and I,
    Who only want the living truth.
It was not good to nurse the lie;
    'Tis well it died in harmless youth.

I go from you to-night to sleep.
    Why, what's the odds? why should I grieve?
I have no fund of tears to weep
    For happenings that undeceive.
The days shall come, the days shall go
    Just as they came and went before.
The sun shall shine, the streams shall flow
    Though you and I are friends no more.

And in the volume of my years,
    Where all my thoughts and acts shall be,
The page whereon your name appears
    Shall be forever sealed to me.
Not that I hate you over-much,
    'Tis less of hate than love defied;
Howe'er, our hands no more shall touch,
    We'll go our ways, the world is wide.

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