The Winter that Won't Let Go

Like the houses that wont sell and the economy that wont take off and the politics that wont get out of Park we now have the winter that wont let go. At least in Chicago. We have gone through hell. Thirty below. Forty below. Days on end of snow. Frozen wasteland. And by now we usually get some relief. It is almost April. But not to be. We woke up this morning to eighteen degrees. Frost on the windows with no end in sight.

And you really cant help but connect the dots. Our age is one of stagnation. People frozen in their homes in their jobs in their marriages.It is almost like America as a whole has hit middle age. A strange thought for a country that prides itself on being young. America now is one big waiting game it would seem. Waiting for retirement. Waiting for a job. Waiting to sell. And then there is the weather.

The slogging through it psychology of winter is a perfect metaphor for our time. We slog through to better times. Like the spring it must be there after this long dark winter. We can feel it in the sun now. We can feel it in the light that is now Daylight Savings Time. Funny how that extra hour means nothing when you cant go outside.

So we wait for winter to lose her grip. She is a real bitch this time. They are calling for snow tomorrow.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

Holocaust Weather

Since when did weather become a news story? There is no normal weather now. Winter storms have been named. We are in the Apocalypse every time a thunder cloud appears. I was watching the news and they said a KILLER STORM was on the way to Chicago. I looked out the window and saw the snow coming down. It was beautiful. I turned back to the news. KILLER STORM IS HERE. A man in a heavy coat stood on a street in Chicago. The weather here is getting worse he said. I looked back out the window. A gentle snow fall. I turned back to the news. KILLER SNOW STORM IN CHICAGO.

Obviously someone figured out in ratings land that weather sells. And if mother nature doesn't agree then just add a little spin. Put a guy like Ali Veshi in lower Manhattan and have him find a really deep puddle and stand there. Or better yet drive him to the beach and have him stand in the surf. Then have him try and talk over the wind and the rain. Brilliant! THE KILLER STORM IS HERE. And Ali is braving the elements to bring us the latest.

In the Midwest our KILLER STORM is really tornado's. Spring. They come in the spring and we really do go in our basements and hide out when the sky turns green. The problem is that if every storm is a KILLER STORM you have a hard time figuring out what is really a KILLER STORM. Tornadoes still hit fast and they kill a lot of people. Funny how Ali Veshi is nowhere to be seen when there is a real tornado bearing down across the cornfields. I guess that is our new barometer.

No Ali Veshi. Run for cover.

www.billhazelgrove.com
Rocket Man...Scouting gone wrong

Cabin Fever

I get it why Hemingway lived in Key West and then Cuba. I mean I really get it watching the snow swirling outside my window in the middle of April. Cabin Fever. This is when it is the worse. You have done your time. You have suffered through the sub zero days and the snow and you have trudged through gale force bone cracking wind and now it is April and you should be rewarded for living in the Midwest and going through weeks without sunshine and days so dark and cold you feel like slitting your wrist. But NOOOOO. It's snowing and its raining and the sun wont be back for a week. Cabin fever hits you like a dark night.

The real thing that gets you is going to Florida. You come back and your first question off the plane is: How stupid am I? And you answer it quickly. REALLY STUPID. Why would you live in a place where basically people spend seven to eight months indoors and then run outside like hysterical lepers at the first sign of sun only to get rained on or snowed on or blown away in a tornado. In Florida you get up and go for a run and sit on the beach and yeah it's full of retired people and everyone is transplants and the alligators and swamps are a little weird, but WHO CARES! It's beautiful man and you are not stuck in doors.

And yeah when you get older you come to realize that the Midwest is where all the coalminers live. People work in the Midwest. And then they work some more. And then they work some more. Then they get old and die. GREAT. It's not as bad as all that but it's close. Just ride the Metra in the dead of winter with all the commuters and it looks like something out Russia with everyone trudging toward the Gulag. And then you to this place where it is sunny every day. Nobody seems to work. Cars don't rust. You wear shorts and eat seafood. And the ocean is there just for you.

But that is not where you live. You live in the Chicago land area. Everyone does work including you. And you cannot figure out how to escape. So you wait. You wait with everyone else. You wait for the sun and grit it out until...June, maybe July...August?

www.billhazelgrove.com

Rocket Man will blast off in July