| Mrs. 'Boro: Is time flying by really good? |
|
By: JEANNE BRAGG, Post Columnist
|
Posted: Sunday, February 7, 2010 6:48 am
|
 Email  Print
|
Well, we’ve made it to the second month of the second decade of the second millennium. And hasn’t it flown by?
I’ve said this before, but it seems like it was yesterday when I took a photo of Tommy on New Year’s Eve with the “rhinestone” 2000 glasses on his face. We went to bed that night concerned about apocalyptic problems we could encounter as computer digits rolled from 1999 into 2000. That fear never materialized.
Many others, however, rose up to take its place: the attack on the World Trade Centers, a monumental tsunami, mass murders too numerous to mention, the Haitian earthquakes, California wildfires.
Those 10 years have flown by for me, but I doubt they have for someone who lost a loved one in Thailand, someone who still battles with the trauma of Sept. 11, 2001 or those pitiful people looking for tents in Haiti.
I’m sure each hour is abysmal there and I so admire Anderson Cooper and other news figures who have made it a point to expose the suffering and need for help while themselves surviving on granola bars and sleeping in sleeping bags.
I was impressed when Dr. Nancy Snyderman of the Today Show went into the operating rooms in Port au Prince. She said she struggled with the decision about whether to help the operating rooms or report the news; she couldn’t decide which would serve the people’s interests best.
Today as I filled the 28 chambers of my monthly pill case I thought, didn’t I just do this a week ago? Reality made me realize it was actually four weeks ago but, again, it seems like just yesterday.
Is time flying is good or bad? A little of both, in many ways ... another reality of “wisdom and experience” as Dr. Junior Nelson would say. Anyway I look at it, it’s old age.
•••
And how about that snow?
Not all predictions of snow have been accurate recently, and I wondered if the warning of the “biggest one to come in five years” would come true. The snow was big, although it fell in millions of tiny snowflakes, particle by particle, not in huge cottonball drops.
The ice storm the next day added a whole other dimension. The combination of snow and ice twinkled as if fake glitter had been sprinkled on the top. Icicles were suspended from street signs, tree limbs sparkled like jewelry and landscapes were reduced to white and grey duotones, making everything look peaceful and clean.
Pine trees swooped with snow like giant brooms, and our boxwoods were so burdened they looked like they would bend into giant four-leaf clovers.
When I saw those bare trees sparkling with ice, I understood why companies started making “icicle lights” and why the people who decorate our Civic Plaza string lights over bare tree branches.
Everything was beautiful ... unless you happened to be a worker who had to salt the roads; a student (or anyone) who had to scrape snow off their car or a letter carrier who had to perform, regardless of street conditions.
My friend Cheryl Harris said her grandmother used to say: “When snow’s been laying on the ground this long, it’s waiting for more to come.”
In the coming weeks, we’ll see just how true Grandmother’s prediction turns out to be.
‘Til next week. |
|
|
|
|
|
Login and voice your opinion!
|
Digg
Facebook
MySpace
Yahoo!