No Savesies?

As I write this, the sun is glistening off the snow pack that has covered my street for the better part of the past six weeks. Temps are forecast to keep rising and, mercifully, the snow should be gone by the weekend.

But for weeks now, Philadelphia and surrounding areas have had to deal with mountains of snow in a continuous barrage, the likes of which I cannot remember seeing in my lifetime.

Sure, we've had large snowfalls in the past, but they seemed to last on the ground a few days, and then temps would rise, rain would come, and the piles of snow would be gone. This year we never seemed to get a break. It was one measurable snowfall on top of another. Again, hopefully that is all coming to an end now.

With the snow have come a number of practical issues that we have all had to deal with, from altered transportation schedules to cancelled school and work days, and, of course, physical labor. The need to continually dig out from the storms. In Philly under Code 10-720, residents have to clear a 3-foot wide path in front of their homes within six hours of the end of a storm.

But that clearing of "a path" only takes care of enabling folks to use a walkway. There is another issue, one that has become extremely heated and controversial over the years and been particularly highlighted this year due to the regularity of the situation: the saving of a parking space from which you dug out your private vehicle.

Over the years we have come up with a number of colorful ways to save the spaces. Some have placed elaborate, creative, humorous artworks in the space. Others have put household objects such as old toilets out there to save a spot. For most, the tried and true method is the placing of lawn or beach chairs in the spot.

These saved parking spaces have caused problems over the years, both here in Philly and elsewhere.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

Philadelphia, January 1996

The first real snow storm of the year is headed towards the northeastern United States this weekend. It is expected to dump anywhere from six inches up to a foot and a half of the white stuff in the 'I-95' corridor between New York and Boston.

That means it will be sliding hundreds of miles to the north of us here in Philly, so we likely dodge this first blast of winter. Still, temperatures have been slowly and surely dropping, and we have had a lot of rain over the past week or so.

With Christmas now less than a week away, all of these factors start to make one think of the possibility of that old Bing Crosby cliche, a 'White Christmas' just like the ones I used to know.

But how many of us here in Philadelphia actually can remember a single snowy Christmas, let alone a few of them close together which would make it a clear association with the holiday?

The answer is as mixed as the weather this time of year. Personally, I do have a clear recollection of a big snow at some point in my early childhood. I remember folks making a big deal of it, and it being an exciting thing for me as a little tot.

Checking back into the National Weather Service records all the way to 1951, my memory is proven correct. There has only been one major snow storm at Christmas time in that period covering over a half century, the Christmas storm of 1966, when I was five years old.

That Christmas eve it began snowing, and it did not stop until just over a foot of the powder was on the ground by the time us kiddies woke up around 7am. What glory to look out the window upon! But something tells me that the grown-ups weren't as happy as I was.