A FOUR LETTER WORD (on March 17)

“Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?...” (from Job 38:22)

Snow is a four-letter word.   I really don’t like snow.  I have learned to kind of tolerate it.  I don’t “hate” it the way I did twenty years ago.  But I really don’t like it.

Just three days ago, it was 71 degrees outside!  I did have a nice time at the retreat in Shrewsbury.  They gave us some “sabbath time” on Wednesday afternoon to just be alone and be quiet.  I took a half hour walk around a nearby subdivision.  Kids were outside in summer clothes, playing on swing sets, riding bikes, etc.  What a difference a few days makes!

My late mother used to talk a lot about the winter of 1955-1956.  That winter was a lot like this one.  It was unusually warm and had an unusually low amount of snow during December, January, and February.  My mother was “very” pregnant with my brother Eddie at that time.  I was under two years old and so I don’t remember any of it.  After an almost “snow less” winter, March dumped piles of snow on the Boston area.  Ed Sullivan (of CBS Variety Show fame) was scheduled to be the Grand Marshall of the St. Patrick’s Day parade which had to be canceled due to a blizzard.  There was ANOTHER blizzard that year on March 24-25.  Eddie was born during that storm at 5 minutes past Midnight at St. Margaret’s hospital in Boston’s Dorchester section.  My mother was a devout Catholic and adamantly maintained that “the Virgin Mary told her” the baby would be born on March 25, the Roman Catholic “Feast of the Annunciation”.  Well, whatever the case, the baby WAS born on March 25.

Thank God this storm wasn’t a blizzard, but this winter does seem to be a lot like I’ve heard 1955-1956 described!

I’m a minority in my home:  the only one with no Irish ancestry!  My wife is half Irish, and therefore my 3 young adult children are each a quarter Irish- so in THEIR honor:  Happy St. Patrick’s Day!