What the heck is up with the weather?
Except for one very cold day, it has felt like October since . . . well, October. Actually, in October, it felt more like September. Didn't feel like October until November.
You get the idea. Last week it hit the high 50s. It reminds me of those TV commercials for Jimmy Dean sausage where the planets, clouds, rainbows, etc. can't get up and do their job without a good breakfast. Winter itself needs a big sausage McMufffin, I guess, or a shot of 5-Hour Energy. It's not showing up for work on time these days.
It's easy to take no winter for granted.
We're supposed to feel guilty about the temps because it could very well be a symptom of global warming. Yet it's nice to be warm, isn't it?
Lots of gruff, angry, red-faced bloviators curse global warming as a hoax, but tell that to the polar bears running out of room.
To the hoaxsters, it's just a coincidence that the icy tops of the world have receded — receded far enough to put their heads in the sand, that is. I guess all the anecdotal evidence of melted glaciers, naked-topped Mount Kilimanjaro, animal and plant migration, disappearing species and rising sea levels are just another plot Obama, liberals and scientists are hatching to take over the world.
In the other direction, the college kids are convinced that the world is rapidly deconstructing while a nation of emperors happily fiddles away its chances to reverse the decline. To many of them, it's already too late, we've already missed the Paul Revere opportunity.
The two extremes: Hoax and already too late. Hmmm . . . are we really somewhere in between?
The snow removal industry isn't exactly thrilled about this no winter thing. Not much chance to show off the new plows, sanders, scrapers, etc. Guess it's payback for last year, when all the cities and towns had used up their entire snow budgets by the day after Christmas.
God help the random little flakes that dare fall on our streets. There'll be 10 plows roaring over that one little flake.
Snow budgets get pummeled in heavy years but thy rarely seem to show savings in light years because of the readiness and mobilization effort that goes into the force: trucks standing by, at the ready to annihilate any dastardly falling flakes.
When did it become the rule that no hour or minute of the day should be anything other than perfectly plowed, sanded, safe-for-a-baby-carriage streets? In the old days, only four-wheel drive vehicles would dare venture out in a blizzard, but now the standard is set for grandma to be able to go buy elderberry wine at any given hour of a snowstorm.
One wonders why some people go out in a snowstorm in their regular cars. They block up the roads and get in the way for plowers, 4WD cars and trucks. Then it's all about them surviving and just getting home but what the heck were they thinking?
I suppose they feel encouraged by this 24-hour a day perfect roads philosophy we've built up over the decades. What happened to: stay off the bleeping roads during the storms?
How on earth did people get by in the older days, when they weren't guaranteed 24-hour perfection? It's part of our TV remote national personality that government has to be perfect for us, even though we no longer want to pay for it.
But who cares? As long as it's not cold, that's fine by me. Let the polar bears eat defrosted TV dinners. They'll adapt, right?
Tell them to read their Darwin. Plus, who likes shoveling snow? There were seven relatively easy winters in a row in the '90s, but then it got cold and mean again. You lose some of that ability to withstand cold when you're deprived of it for a while.
We humans get it back real fast. After a first big winter chill, the next one doesn't feel so bad.
But this year? We're still waiting for that first one — and happy to wait.
Now, where'd I put my flippers?
Gordon Baird is a local actor and musician, co-founder of Musician magazine, and producer of the community access TV show "Gloucester Chicken Shack."
