Snow has finally flown....

.....here in West Bloomfield.

The Keed with the dreaded D100.

We can tell, because:
-1) A thin crust of snow (pictured) is on everything outside, and
-2) The local TV weather prognosticators have trotted out
-a) “Nothing we can’t handle,” and
-b) “We Rochesterians are a hearty lot.”
—We haven’t heard this tiresomely boring boilerplate until now — now that snow is back.
Of course, if those prognosticators predict more than an inch, people run around like chickens with their heads cut off, gasoline goes clear outta sight, Weggers runs out of milk, and schools and factories close.
If an inch actually falls, enraged SUV-drivers slide blithely into the boonies and wonder why they lost control — and why their SUV flipped.
Wasn’t like that back in our day. School never closed; we trudged to school every day, often barefoot in snow eight inches deep, and it was uphill both comin’ and goin’.
Linda rode in a schoolbus (but often walked home) — I walked, and later graduated to driving the Blue Bomb (pictured) — me and Elz and Huntsberger.

The Keed with my father’s Hawkeye.

The Blue Bomb at Brandywine High School in 1962.

Now all the kids are riding schoolbuses.
I drive through nearby Bloomfield and stop for schoolbuses picking up kids two blocks from school.
For crying out loud — no wonder school taxes are ballooning out of sight.
And here’s Mom (or Granny) idling her minivan out at the end of the driveway. Her kids are inside the minivan waiting for the schoolbus.
Linda waited outside, and it was always a blizzard.
When I worked at the mighty Mezz, I used to do the “Holiday Closings-box:” a listing of what facilities would be closed for a holiday, or operated on a holiday schedule. (I got them to add the local bus-service.)
I kept it as a Quark-file, so that completed it could be just flowed onto the page.
By doing so, I also controlled how it looked — I wanted it to look classy.
What I’d do is save each updated file so there was only one file. All I’d do is overwrite the last update and save the new update.
It was a tiny file, but I kept it on the huge servers upstairs.
I titled it the “Wear-Your-Rubbers” file.
I called it that because it reminded me of a mother telling you to “wear your rubbers.”
So now when the TV weather prognosticators tell us to take an umbrella, we say “Yes, Mother!”

The “D100” is my Nikon digital camera. My siblings all loudly abhor it because it’s a “professional” camera, instead of point-and-shoot.

“Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at.

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years.

“Elz” is my sister Betty (Elizabeth). She’s second after me — 62 (I’m the oldest at 63). She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “Huntsberger” is Lynn Huntsberger, a friend of my sister, who like my sister also graduated “Brandywine High School” (see below) two years after me, in 1964. I also dated Huntsberger.

“The Blue Bomb” is the tired navy-blue 1953 Chevrolet Two-Ten two-door sedan I learned to drive in.

I graduated from “Brandywine High School” north of Wilmington, DE in 1962.

My father gave his old Kodak “Hawkeye” camera to me.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost two years ago. Best job I ever had.

RE: “I got them to add the local bus-service......” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke, which occurred October 26, 1993, ended that; and I began work at the mighty Mezz early in 1996. The local bus-service was Canandaigua-Area-Transit-Service (CATS), a private company.

“Quark” is the computer-software many printed graphics (e.g. a newspaper) are generated with. It’s the industry-standard.