The Blizzard of Ought Nine

Virginia is still digging out from a blizzard that brought the most snow in December since 1932. And what exquisite timing!

Just as Obama returns from the “global warming” whine–fest in Copenhagen he’s forced to drive back to the White House, because Marine One can’t fly in the storm.

Weather vagaries like this drive the President and other Ecotarians bazook (a word my daughter invented indicating liberal enraged frenzy). When is Mother Nature going to start conforming to the global warming computer models? Doesn’t she know the science is “settled?”

Personally, I knew the storm was going to be bad when the weatherman began his broadcast by screaming, “Head for the hills!” By 6:00 p.m. on Friday they were already burning furniture in Charlottesville to stay warm.

For those of you unfamiliar the area, authentic DC Snow Panic begins in the grocery store. Toilet paper vanishes first, because there is a belief here that heavy snow causes diarrhea. Checkout lanes fill with people buying gallons of milk whose only conceivable use for it would be to soak their dentures.

People who weren’t clogging up the express lane at the grocery are clogging up the gas lanes at the filling station. But I wonder where exactly are these motorists planning on driving during a whiteout?

Obama already has a ride.

I stay home during natural disasters like Snowtrina, but it appears I may be in the minority. Over the course of the storm there were hundreds of car crashes. AAA fielded 11,000 calls and 4,400 were for drivers in stuck or disabled vehicles.

Which means many of the same people who questioned the sanity and character of the laggards who didn’t evacuate as Katrina approached the Gulf Coast — were stuck in a snow bank this week, feverishly dialing their cell phones and screaming for help.

Saturday at our house the snow was so deep the dogs wouldn’t leave the front porch. People were another story. By 11:00 a.m. the street was filled with residents discussing and shoveling snow. I had never seen so many neighbors simultaneously. It looked like the scene in “Jericho” where the cast stands outside and watches while the Electro Magnetic Pulse attack explodes in the sky.

The oldest son of our new neighbors boasted his homeland village could knock out this snow problem in less than 20 minutes. And although I don’t question the villager’s enthusiasm — they lack the technology, since I doubt there is a single snow shovel in all of Liberia.

Working together, in a bit more than 20 minutes, the neighborhood cleaned enough snow so residents at the top of the hill could escape and bring supplies to the rest of Donnerville.

Visually it was like February 2003 when another blizzard escaped the “global warming” computer programmers and dumped 24” of snow. We didn’t get a snowplow then until Wednesday and it was days until regular mail service resumed, because the surly carrier wouldn’t deliver anywhere his truck could not go.

This year I expected to see a mastodon before a saw a postman, but to my shock and amazement, our carrier delivered the mail on Monday! What’s more, he abandoned his truck and was wading through snowdrifts like Lewis and Clark.

I hate to sound like a geezer, but as a boy I loved snow. We lived in Oklahoma City and lacked hills, so dad would run a rope behind the car and tow my cousins and me on sleds.

We would fly down the street yelling “faster, faster!” It was great fun and we didn’t have helmets, condoms or any of the other protective gear that today’s nannytarians require children wear.

I preferred to ride on the last sled, because you felt more centrifugal force as you rounded a curve and when the rider eventually fell off, you weren’t run over by the other two sleds.

My son had about the same reaction to the snow as the dogs. Instead of going outside and playing in a once–in–a–lifetime December blizzard, he stayed inside tethered to the X–box, playing Madden. Although in fairness I admit he chose extreme snowy weather for all his video football games; in keeping with conditions he was avoiding outside the window.

This weather was so uplifting, inspiring and confounding that I’ve written a song dedicated to Obama. Sing it to the tune of “Frosty the Snowman.”

Frosty Katrina,
Was a hurricane of snow.
It’s December winds put an icy spin
On our “global warming” woes.
Frosty Katrina,
Mother Nature didn’t know.
While Obama talked,
An’ little nations squawked,
She was busy bringing snow.
Frosty Katrina,
Is your proof right here today.
Neither Denmark meets, nor programming feats
Nature has the final say.

Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at
michael-shannon@comcast.net.

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