I awoke Sunday morning to a roaring wind and blowing snow! Since it is my Sunday morning ritual to walk our family's 2 Great Danes, I checked the thermometer before I ventured out. It said 9 degrees. The wind was blowing pretty hard and drifts were about 3 feet on the path headed into our woods. My daughter's 3 year old Great Dane Zander thought that the drifts were pretty darned fun to jump in. My 7 year old female Great Dane that can only be walked on a leash due to some neighborhood "social issues" immediately balked at any further foray into the cold and blowing snow. Jersey doesn't like wind or rain or snow and certainly does not enjoy having her belly rubbing in a snow drift! It took some serious prodding to get her to continue towards the woods where I was certain better conditions awaited. Well, I was somewhat right. The wind and snow were not as severe in our beautiful woods. Both dogs quickly dispensed with some hygiene issues and commenced to look for signs of deer tracks. Since there were none I guessed that the deer were just a bit smarter than us and were sheltered down by the creek! As the 150 pound Zander raced ahead down the trail he quickly vanished from sight. Jersey was pulling on her leash as a form of protest! Suddenly Zander came running ( a better description might be staggering) toward us in a state of bewilderment. I soon saw the reason for his displeasure: his eyelids were heavy with ice and he couldn't see very well. I looked at Jersey and her nose had icicles hanging down and she was starting to howl in protest. Needless to say, our mile and a half walk had to be aborted. What wimpy Great Danes to let a little snow bother them!
Once inside I turned on the news and saw that we were in a blizzard warning! And oh, yes, I let out a "when I was a kid" explanation of what a blizzard REALLY was! My idea of a blizzard is my memory (and yes, this is backed by actual photographic PROOF) of the blizzard of 1978 when our house was snowed in for over a week. I can remember hearing the front end loader working his way down our country road trying to cut through 8 to 10 foot drifts! Now THATS a storm, not this little 10" snowfall with little 3 to 4 foot drifts. I was dismayed that the TV station was making such a big deal out of a what used to be "normal" snow storm. Listening to the local TV station, you would have thought that we were getting hit by the 100 year storm! Have we gotten soft or what? This is MICHIGAN and it's DECEMBER! What do you expect? I would think that common sense would dictate some simple life saving techniques: SLOW DOWN; STAY HOME if you can't SLOW DOWN; and DRESS WARMLY.
And since I'm on my box, why does everyone have to let the TV station know that they are CLOSED? I mean come on, if you've got a group that is going to meet and you have maybe 10 people in that group, CALL THEM! It must be a status symbol to tell your friends, "hey did you see our cancellation on TV8?" It just seems that we have a tendency to dramatize, exaggerate and make everything "breaking news". If you want all of the details from "when I was a kid back in 1978" then I'd be happy to tell you about a REAL BLIZZARD! Remember, it's MICHIGAN in WINTER for cryin out loud!! Spring is less than 100 days away!
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