So You Think You've Got Snow?

Boston is a great town. I loved living there, but lately I keep hearing all these complaints about snow.

Let me tell you about the city I lived in before Boston, Syracuse, New York. Syracuse has 300 overcast days a year. When I would mention that I used to live on a farm in Oswego County they used to turn up their noses. I never understood how residents of the most overcast major city in America could look down on someplace else.

People in Oswego County don't much care what people in Syracuse think about them. It's not like being looked down on by Hawaii. But even Oswego can look to the east and chuckle. My brother told me yesterday that Copenhagen New York now has 21 feet of snow. It's in Lewis County in the Tug Hill Plateau. Since you know that the wind blows across the Great Lakes from west to east, and Ontario is the last great Lake, you might think that all that moisture had to drop somewhere. That's why God invented the Tug Hill Plateau. You can't drive up there this time of year. People dig tunnels from the farmhouse to the barn under the snow so they can milk the cows. One year a man died in the Tug Hill and they put him in a snow bank to keep him fresh until spring, when the minister could come up from down below and give him a Christian burial. (this is absolutely true).

So while I feel sorry for Boston, my compassion is limited.

Of course, three days ago it was 91 in my home office in Westwood, Los Angeles, California. I decided to turn on the air conditioning. There is no way I would ever live again in any of the other places mentioned in this article.