ETCETERA

NIGHTCAP

Adios, Old Man Winter

By Harry Kirsbaum

o those who were upset waking
up on April 15 to find a few inches
of snow on the ground, espe-
cially after a 77-degree day two days
before, you can still find some solace
in knowing that we broke a 133-year
record.
With 94.8 inches, or 7.9 feet of the
powdery white stuff falling in Detroit,
we beat the previous record by 1.2
inches — a record set in 1881, the
year Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday
fought the Clantons at the Gunfight
at the OK Corral.
It was also the year that pogroms
against Russian Jews began in
Elisabethgrad and anti-Jewish rioting
took place in Kiev, Ukraine, but I don't
want to go off on a Google-search
tangent.
When I hammered in the wooden
stakes, then stapled the burlap bar-
rier around the Asian Maple next to
our front door in November, I had no
idea that instead of protecting the

T

tree, it became the landing area of
what would eventually be an 8-foot
tall mound of shoveled driveway
snow.The burlap barrier was buried
until the end of March. A similar-sized
mound was stacked up against the
garage door.
In the backyard, I was only able
to shovel off the back deck, leaving
our pug, Oliver, to do his business in
what I'm sure he felt was the size of a
prison yard.
He has since reclaimed his king-
dom and is now able to chase squir-
rels for 32 feet, instead of just barking
at them from the deck.
The burlap is now rolled up and in
the garage waiting for next season.
Since last week, the rain has melted
any trace of snow, except for those
ugly mounds in all the parking lots,
and the birds are back, waking us at
sunrise and signaling our cat, Chloe,
to bother me until I feed her.
The days are getting longer, the

level of outdoor
clothing needed to
leave the house is
getting lighter, and
the prevailing mood
of Detroiters is "cau-
tiously optimistic."
Most people I've
talked to are in happier moods, but
they will eagerly bring up what a hor-
rible winter it was. It's as if we had a
collective, mild dose of PTSD.
"Yup, it was a bad one'
"Nope, I'm sure we won't be com-
plaining about the heat this summer,
either, but you never know."
"Yup, I'm not sure about the Red
Wing's chances, either. I'd just like to
think warm — about the Tigers, and
T-shirts and shorts, and sitting at a
warm ballpark!'
It's hard to realize that on March
8, when CNN first reported Malay-
sian Flight 370's disappearance, the
weather forecast in Detroit was 32
degrees, and later on in the week
we had expected colder temps and
snow, just like every week in the past
four months.

44c(-1- ter

THE CENTERPIECE DF STYLE

It's also hard to believe that about
six weeks later, CNN is still covering
the disappearance as breaking news.
I suppose if Ted Turner had started
CNN in 1937, Anderson, Kate, Erin,
Jake and Wolf would still be covering
the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.
And I'm sure there would be a little
clock ticking in the corner:"76 years,
75 days, 14 hours, 12 minutes since
disappearance," because they hate to
let go of a good story.
Sorry for another Google tangent.
All in all, we should be happy to
know that we survived the snowiest
winter in Detroit's history, instead of
just suffering through another five
months of crappy weather.
And how many future winters
could be that bad?
Don't answer that.

(11/

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