By Harry Jaffe On this lovely, snowy Sunday, I am with the school kids: what fun! But such a waste.
Why couldn’t it have snowed on Sunday night so schools would be closed on Monday and we could have another day to play? Better yet, why couldn’t it have dumped so much snow on Monday that schools had to close all week until Christmas, which could be white?
Indeed, we can expect the first truly white Christmas since 1969, according to kiat.net. We had a dusting in 2002, but more than four inches in ’69.
The weather Web site says we have had only nine white Christmases in recorded history. With any luck and cold temperatures, Friday will make an even 10.
A muscular snowfall is about the only thing that can make Washington stop and enjoy itself. The political bumping and grinding comes to a halt for a day or two. All can be calm and cold and pristine.
In my 30 years in the capital city, I revel in memories of those rare, wondrous days when we could walk down the middle of Connecticut Avenue from the Maryland line all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue. Not a sound but for the scraping of shovels on sidewalks, not a car in our paths, nary an lawyer bent over a brief case. We could hit Pennsylvania and continue striding five abreast west toward Georgetown, kicking snow all the way to Le Gallois, the only restaurant brave enough to stay open in those days.
We owed most of those snowy walks to the Marion Barry-era road crews, of course. Trucks broke down, plows would fall off, crews would sleep in. There was no more graphic demarcation of the D.C.-Maryland line than the times when a blizzard would hit. Montgomery County streets would be cleared in a day, but D.C. streets would turn from snow to slush to water by the Barry method of clearing snow — warmer temperatures.
My sparse recollections of serious snowfalls in our region are born out by the records. You have to look back to Feb. 15, 2003, for a snowfall of more than 16 inches. Before that dump we got a major blizzard in January 1996, when more than 17 inches fell from the sky. Average snowfall for the District of Columbia is 17 inches a year, but the number rises above 20 inches for suburbs to the north and west. Heaviest snowfall in a day? On Jan. 28, 1922, 21 inches fell in one 24-hour period.
Among my favorite things to do on a snowbound day is to reach for my collection of Robert Frost poems. Writing from Vermont, Frost might have penned verse after verse about the white stuff. Not so much. I could find only one that caught my fancy. It’s called “Dust of Snow.”
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a Hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
Here’s hoping you enjoy, rather than rue, this snowy Sunday.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at [email protected]
