Recycled entry

[kate_schaefer]

I wrote this in spezzatura's LJ in response to her rant about Seattle-area drivers not having a clue how to deal with this frozen white stuff, as opposed to people from practically anywhere else in the country including folks who grew up a few miles north, south, east, or west of here (the ones who grew up west of here lived on the Olympic Peninsula, mostly, not in Puget Sound. If they lived on islands in Puget Sound, they learned how to drive boats at an early age and their driving-cars-in-snow skills are irrelevant to today's sermonette). Since it was a longer and more discursive entry than I usually put into comments, I decided to repost it here.

...packs of feral drivers...

I learned to drive in Ohio; Glenn learned to drive in Alaska. We had to know how to drive in snow. I used to practice putting my car into a skid and pulling it out again, over and over, on my way to high school, while my carpool passengers giggled insanely. People who grow up here don't have enough time with snow on the ground to practice. It's hard to learn a skill you can only use for six or ten hours every other year.

A billion years ago (okay, 21 years ago), there was a real snowstorm, about a foot of snow, just before Thanksgiving, 1985. It was a smaller city then, after the Boeing bust, before the dot-com boom, and people stayed home.

I didn't; I was buying my first house, and it was due to close that day, just before I was due to fly to Florida to see my grandparents. It was due to close that day, and the seller was putting on a new roof as a condition of the sale, and the roofer left the roof uncovered overnight because he was a doofus who didn't check the weather report, and a foot of snow fell into my kitchen-to-be.

Well, said my friend the attorney, you would have bought the house as it was, with the bad roof. Now you're getting the house with a roof about to be replaced and a kitchen floor that's about to be replaced as well.

I took the bus downtown to the escrow office, and we closed the sale. Right after I signed all the papers, I called the airport to see if my flight was going to take off. In those days they wouldn't tell you over the phone. Come to the airport and see, they said. No way, I said. All flights ended up being cancelled that day.

I was dating a guy who grew up in Idaho then. Once the roads were clear of cars, he put on chains and we cautiously drove out on the crunchy snow to pick up some friends to see Sun Ra play at the Fabulous Rainbow. What a lot of saxophones! Sun Ra's band was so big, it may have outnumbered the tiny brave audience that night.

The next day, the snow melted and I went to Florida. I sat on the beach with my sister Gini, scooping up handsful of dripping wet sand and tiny burrowing tellins, talking about men.

Comments

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

You know, it could be worse. When I was in college, some of my friends from WA/OR would mock us native Californians for our inability to deal with water falling from the sky in liquid form. Driving in snow in the Bay Area? I don't even want to think about the disaster that would ensue.

Of course, our streets aren't engineered to deal with large quantities of rain; the drainage sucks.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. Sometimes it is worse. Seattle is accustomed to dealing with large amounts of water falling from the sky in a very gentle drizzle during much of the fall, winter, and spring. When it rains hard -- as hard as it normally rains for half an hour every day all summer long in Ohio, for instance -- Seattle drivers are completely disoriented.

I'm disoriented, too, but I know what to do. If it's raining so hard that I can't see other drivers through the rain, I pull off the road and wait in a safe place until the rain slackens, then I go on my way, driving a bit slower and leaving a bit more space between me and the car in front.

Oh, sorry. That was the rain rant, wasn't it? Not appropriate for today's weather.

I don't see how the drainage could suck in the Bay Area. The streets are so steep that the water has to run right off and down into the Bay, right?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

They assume it's all steep, you see.

In the flat parts and lowlands, it backs up terribly. First sign that a rainfall is heavy here is always the same thing: 101 is flooded at three spots in Marin: Richardson Bay, Corte Madera, and San Antonio Creek. Every damn time, it seems. Then the wadis, which is what we have for creeks down here, overflow.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

So it's not that there's a lot of water falling through the air all at once, too much for the drainage system to deal with, but that it keeps on falling longer than anyone expects? Or is it that the heavy rainfall takes place out of sight, out of town, and then the flooding comes into town because it has nowhere to go?

I don't go to the Bay Area often enough, and when I haven't been there for a while, I think of the climate as being much like the climate here. It is, and it isn't; here we have a Mediterranean climate with rain forest not far off, and there you have a Mediterranean climate with high desert not far off, and in both places there's the geological confusion of earthquake and volcano country mushing the land around.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

NOAH: How you gonna do it, Lord?
LORD: I'm gonna make it rain for a hundred days and drown 'em right out.
NOAH: Listen, I've got an idea. You'll save water. Make it rain for forty days and forty nights, and wait for the sewers to back up.
LORD: Right.

That's kind of what happens here. If there's been enough earlier rain that the ground is saturated and the drainage reservoirs full, any significant additional quantity of water has nowhere to go. So the critical question here is not just how much it's raining, but how much it's been raining.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

So the critical question here is not just how much it's raining, but how much it's been raining.

I can see you saying this and trying hard to keep your affect completely flat between the sections of the sentence. Ayup. It's also the thing that determines how many trees fall down when the wind comes right behind the rain.

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

Nope, that only helps if you're in a hilly area. Most of my commute is close to the Bay level, and you get lots of standing water in the streets (crap clogs the storm drains). There was really evil flooding back in the winter of 1982-1983 (levee breaks) that made it impossible to get through on Highway 237, and I had to double my commute distance going all the way through Milpitas, San Jose, Santa Clara, and Cupertino to get to Sunnyvale. I'm at a different gig now, but I still have that sh*tty Fremont to Sunnyvale commute.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

The amount of geographical variation even in a small area is amazing, isn't it?

[imnotandrei.livejournal.com]

Could be worse. Could be Baltimore.

You see, there are clearly followed patterns when the White Death From The Sky descends upon an innocent city:

1) Everyone must rush out and go to the grocery store, to survive the terrors ahead.
2) Since everyone knows that the longer you're out in the WDFTS, the more danger you're in, you speed up to get home faster.
3) Since everyone also knows that it's loss of visibility that causes the most trouble during the WDFTS, you have to drive closer to the person in front of you so you don't lose sight of them.

I wish I was kidding.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Baltimore is worse? I can see that. Another mild maritime climate with rare snowstorms, complicated by the presence of scads of bureaucrats spilled over from DC.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Sun Ra?!?!?!?!?! At the Rainbow?!?!?!?!?!

That could be the year and tour at which I saw him at an equally-divey Mpls. bar. Hah!

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Sun Ra, at the Rainbow. It may just have been named the Rainbow then; Fabulous may have become part of its name later. I don't remember. I saw a few Dynamic Logs performances at the Rainbow, too.

That Sun Ra concert may be my favorite concert ever. I didn't much like the music; I don't think I had even heard of Sun Ra before Ole told me about the concert. Fragments of the music I remember include a young female vocalist chanting that the New York Times called him Mister Ra; he is a mystery. The band may have played "Pink Elephants on Parade," or I may have heard a recording of it later.

What I liked so much about the concert was what surrounded the music: I hadn't expected to be there, in snow-covered Seattle, with the moonlight glinting off deep, deep snow, drinking beer with my friends (did we drink Grant's stout at the Rainbow, or did we have to go next door to the Blue Moon? I think the good beer on tap was next door, and the Rainbow only had mediocre beer in bottles, but I'm not sure), listening to an old, old man say that he came from Saturn. I thought he came from Neptune, said Ole.

And now it's a long time later, and Ole and Charlie and Grace and I have all married other people, and we're still friends, and the snow falls again, and that right there, that memory, is a lot of what I like about being human.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Great stories! And Grant's Imperial Stout was a great beer.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It was a fine beer, but now that I think about it, I don't think Grant made it that early. I think the good beer we drank in those days was his Scottish Ale. It's possible that original Redhook was made by then. They discontinued it, and then brought it back as Ballard Bitter, but it seemed different in its reincarnation. It was interesting learning about good beer back when there wasn't much of it around here.

Ole and I went to Grant's brewpub in Yakima once when we were there for a wedding. It was a tiny hole in the wall right by the train station.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

The story I heard about the original Redhook is that the yeast went dingo and had to be destroyed, and that's why it didn't taste the same when it came back. I have no idea if that's really true. I'm pretty sure that Ole was responsible for my first taste of Redhook -- and thus of any microbrew -- when he brought a pony keg of it to a room party at a Norwescon. Still seems like one of the weirdest beers I've ever tasted, but I hadn't tasted as many odd beers then as I have since.

No driving in snow, let alone driving snow, was involved in this anecdote. We apologize for any inconvenience.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

That sounds right, about the yeast. Wonder what yeast does when it goes dingo....

Ole didn't bring the keg to that room party. I did.

Jane used to throw chocolate parties at Norwescon in the dawn of history. As time went on, I joined her parties and provided the beer. I don't remember how many parties we did together that way; more than two, fewer than five.

At one of those parties, John Berry sat next to the keg all evening, quietly refilling his cup and not feeling particularly inebriated until the party was over and it was time to stand up.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I love it! Yes, it would have been one of Jane's chocolate parties, of course. So you are responsible for my first taste of microbrew. Thanks for that.

to give everyone a break, but not a breakdown

[timalyne.livejournal.com]

In Vermont and Alaska and other places with a lot of snow, the temperatures are colder, the snow is crispier and usually there's a lot of experienced road crews to take care of the stuff. In these border areas, the temperature is at that "greasy" stage, where ice and snow and rain all mix to the terrible ick. Experienced drivers can manage that, too, but it is certainly not what VT and AK and all that deal with on a daily basis, either (and like you say, how can anyone practice a few hours every year?). There, that's my rant. (And I've lived in Vermont, Massachusetts, Washington and Oregon, so I can compare from personal experience.)

Re: to give everyone a break, but not a breakdown

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, for sure. Your rant is much more realistic. It's nasty stuff to drive on, definitely nastier than real snow where it stays cold enough long enough. Therefore, the best thing I can do in weather like this is stay home, because I know I'm out of practice.

[carl-allery.livejournal.com]

Wow. You guys do realise, don't you, how amazingly lucky you are to have an entire continent of weather within a single country? If we (UK) want snow, or sun we really have to go to another country. Rain, we have plenty of and this year, it appears, wind as well. :-/

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Growing up in Ohio, I used to wonder about the early settlers complaining about the atrocious weather in the colonies. What do they mean? I'd think in the winter, when the skin on my hands and knees would crack and bleed from the cold. What could they have in mind? I'd wonder in the spring, when the rains flooded the fields and washed out bridges. Could they just be wimps? I'd speculate in the summer, when lightning set buildings on fire and tornados tore up entire trailer parks. They just didn't appreciate variety, I thought in the fall, when the leaves turned gold and red and orange.

Hah! Autumn in Ohio is pretty nice.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I always think of the first episode of "King of the Hill," where a pathetic little snow falls unexpectedly on the Texas town. The flakes aren't even reaching the street, but all the drivers are losing it utterly, sliding and skidding around and having little fender benders.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, you have lived in the land of Real Snow Storms, against which my experience of snow is as those pathetic little flakes. How does Massachusetts compare to Colorado? You have real snow there, minus the mountains to make it challenging.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

They've got the real snow there now. Friends have expressed their desire to send it to us. I was caught out in a bit of a snow storm once and had to take refuge in a house, which (as I figured out later) was probably vacant, though it still had furniture and everything. I seem to recall an empty bird cage. It was a house I saw every day from our living room window, but with the snow flying, I entered it for the only time.

We had some of those pathetic little flakes in Georgia. Everybody stopped what they were doing and went out to look up, because if they had looked down, they wouldn't have seen anything. I suspect it melted six inches from the ground.

True, there are no real mountains here, but the place is nice and hilly. I think technically they're ex-mountains, and they probably looked impressive a half million years ago.

Though this year we only had a bit of pathetic-type snow around December 3, the year before we had some real deep snowfalls and were glad when our neigbors across the street came by with their snow blower. When we picked the house we included snow in our calculations, reluctantly rejecting a much larger place on a corner lot in Holyoke (which had gorgeous hardware around the doors and windows, and included a servants' stairway in the back) and settling on this one. I haven't regretted it on those grounds. The lot is narrow, so there is very little shoveling. The front yard is so small I can mow it in five or six minutes, and the back is so thoroughly fenced that I can postpone mowing it until I'm darn good and ready.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Your empty house story is odd and intriguing. It's unlikely that would work nowadays, because almost everyone locks all their doors now (although I still know at least two people living 2000 miles apart who never do).

[debtaber.livejournal.com]

I keep telling my family members that still live in Colorado that they just need to load up all of that extra snow on trucks and haul it out to California. There, they can dump in all over the roads and teach the Californians to drive in the stuff *before* they move up her to Washington.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

The first transplant to Seattle I knew was a high school classmate. He used to fall down laughing describing people getting sparks off the pavement gunning their engines with studded tires. If it's not moving, you must have to give it more power, right?
As for the Californias, I won't go there (conversationally). At least not much. They don'[t realize that the language they speak doesn't map to their physical environment.
Item One: Summer is sunny and green and live; winter is dark and grey and dead. Calling the grey, green, lively season summer and the bright, sunny, dead season winter is misuse of English. No I don't know the right words, but I do know that those are wrong.
Late one "winter" (March-ish) in my sojourn in California, there was a late season snowfall in the Sierras, and I-80 was closed for a day so the crews could get rid of 8 feet of snow. The roving camera van from the TV news got a clip of a station wagon full of family utterly baffled at being turned back by the state troopers ((I have found state police to be almost universally good professionals, nationwide)). They were taking the kids to "visit the snow".

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, California seasons are a real whipsaw experience, aren't they? And immediately I want to contrast whipsaw seasons to chainsaw seasons, and conversationally I'm torn between the song, "Woman with a Chainsaw," and memories of my dad cutting up dead elm trees in our yard as they succumber to Dutch elm disease, tree after tree after tree; it's always chainsaw season if you live near the woods.

I get the concept of visiting the snow, along with that concept of yes yes but not right now. The best birthday present my oldest granddaughter's father ever gave her was a front yard full of snow, in southern California, when she turned five. He got a friend with a pickup to drive up to the mountains; they filled the back of the truck with snow, then drove home and shoveled like maniacs. There was enough to have snowball fights and buid a tiny snowman, which lasted for a few days.