Friday, January 10, 2014

Winter in Chicago



When I was a kid, in the winter when we would wake up to find a thick layer of snow on the ground, my spirits would soar. I would hurry on down to the kitchen and sit at the breakfast table so that I could listen to the old Philco radio. That radio, along with WGN, was the great arbiter of just how my day would go. 


            "and in Tinley Park the following schools are closed. All schools in District 146 are closed, Trinity Lutheran School closed, Saint George Catholic School closed....   " 


Snow day! At that point all hell would break loose. My brothers, sisters, and I would quickly finish our cereal and rush back upstairs to get dressed. We were going out to play! We weren't warned the night before that such a huge snow storm was coming, only that it would probably snow. There was no thirty minute weather report on the late night news. In fact back then the late night news lasted only fifteen minutes and I don't think there was even a weather man. We weren't sent into a polar vortex tizzy, days before the actual event. It was winter, it was cold, and it would snow. I don't understand what the big deal is these days with the obsessing over what the weather is going to be. In the summer it will be hot, warm, rainy, and tornadoey. It may suck or it will be great. In the winter it will always suck. It will snow and it will be cold in Chicago. Get over it, it isn't news. Now if a polar vortex came sweeping down from Canada in July, that would be fucking news, and the media would name it and call it something like Polar Vornado Alicia. And if they wanted to devote twenty four hour coverage to Polar Vornado Alicia on the cable news networks, I would be fine with that. But winter storms do not have names. They are not all encompassing news that needs to be reported on by nitwits that freeze shirts and throw boiling water into the air to prove that it is cold. The people who live up north know that it's cold. It isn't news to them. And those of us who live where it is forever warm, where giant bugs still roam the yard in January, where you still have to clean the swimming pool every week because it hasn't frozen over, we don't care. Other than that, it does give us a heads up that our northern friends and family will be showing up shortly.

8 comments:

  1. I agree Alan. If it were July I would understand all the coverage of this weather but it's January in Chicago - of course it's cold and snowy. DAH

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  2. This is one of your best posts ever!! :) Love the Chicago expletive.

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  3. This is so on the money - I can't believe the weather channel names winter storms. What the hell for - they come by here about every 24 hours - like the what's happening today. Winter in Chicago is Winter in Chicago - it happens for months, then pothole season starts (already did) then road repair season starts. Let's see the weather channel name those times! Good picture Alan!

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  4. I attended Chicago schools from K - 12 and never once had a snow day. Grade school was no problem, one block from home. High School we took the good old CTA every day and made it. By the way, I had perfect attendance all through high school.

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  5. I want to see Polar Vornado Alicia's outfit.

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  6. Dennis, you weren't going to a CPS in 1967. I don't think you'd have made it to school during that blizzard.

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  7. I stopped watching the news this week because I was sick of hearing how cold it was going to be. Its raining right now as I write this.It means there's going to be a reporter standing outside in a raincoat showing how the water flows.

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  8. Seems like Alan is a bit pissed cause it got below 80 in south Florida and had to dig out a sweater from storage to go outside to get the mail. Oh how the sun and cold spoils the fruit...hehe

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