Snow Bunnies

It will be 40 years ago next week that I took my first airplane flight. I flew a thousand miles to meet the little-woman-to-be in her home town of Cleveland. At Cleveland's airport and at the city's downtown, I was overwhelmed with the snow and blizzard, the first time I had been in such an environment. Soon thereafter, Jonka and I drove in her car in snow from Cleveland to Niagara Falls. When we were crossing the long, ice-covered bridge from New York into Ontario, I frightfully noticed that our car began swaying from side to side, and that we were losing speed and traction as other drivers passed us with their angry horn blowing. "What's happening to us, little-woman-to-be?" I cried out. "Well, er," she replied, "my, uh, tires are bald." Ye gads, no snow tires! We barely made it into Niagara Falls, itself quite a sight with its water and surrounding hotels all covered by the thick white stuff. Then, in some kind of cruel attempt to "cure" my apprehension toward all this wet coldness, Jonka urged me to try what a few people in history have attempted, namely, going over the falls in nothing but a barrel. Yeah right. It was at that breaking point that I began to strangle her---unsuccessfully because of her heavy parka and because of the quick interference by nearby Japanese tourists. Today she and I can look back and laugh at this. But when even light snow is predicted (seldom) for our area, little-woman-have-become mysteriously leaves our house for a few days.

-Old Gargoyle