Winter finally arrived in Lagos, with cold temperatures and snow last night. It was not a big snowstorm, but it is still snowing as I type this. The local weather people say we will get 5-8 inches of snow today, in addition to the four or five that came last night. It’s hard to know with weather forecasts these days, as they exaggerate everything. They name every storm so they can talk about it like it is a monster from a 1960’s Japanese monster movie, “Mothra is attacking Lagos with snow and freezing temps!”
I’m a big fan of winter and I like snow, so I look forward to it snowing. I had some errands to run this morning, so I was out at sunup to shovel the truck out and clear the walk. I’m one of those people who enjoys shoveling snow. There is a limit to my enjoyment, but as long as the snow is not three feet deep or super-heavy, I enjoy the exercise and the satisfaction of seeing a clean walk. So, I was out first thing to shovel and then run some errands. I did not see anyone else out and about, so it was more quiet that usual.
That’s something I’ve observed in different parts of the world. When I lived in New Hampshire, the locals all seemed to love shoveling snow, almost as much as they loved complaining. The distinguishing feature of the New England Yankee is complaining about the weather. I recall the first snow storm when I moved to Manchester. I went out at first light to see all my neighbors out shoveling their walks and driveways. By breakfast, all of the walks were clear on my block and most drives were clear as well.
In contrast, Lagos may never clear the snow. My first snowstorm here was my first year, so I was unfamiliar with the local customs. We got a big snowstorm, over 30-inches, and the city was shut down for a week. I drove to the office to shovel the walk and found I was the only person out shoveling his walk. In fact, that whole winter the sidewalks were an obstacle course of frozen boot-prints, patches of ice and snow boulders. In theory, there’s a fine for not shoveling your walk, but I never heard anyone mention it.
That explains a weird thing you see here in Lagos, as well as other vibrant areas. When it snows, the locals walk in the streets. They will do this even when the walks are clear. I think it is just years of conditioning that has turned into a custom. You will see this in the county when it snows. People go out and walk in the streets. Here in Lagos, it means driving gets even more adventurous, as the locals could very well attack you while you are trying to navigate around them on the snow covered streets.
The other thing you see in places like this is how differences in time preference turn up in city planning efforts. My first storm here I learned that no one had bothered to service the city’s snow removal equipment. In fact, much of it was either disabled or missing. I recall that half the plows were either broken or unaccounted for, so snow removal was a comical failure. When your focus is on today, that is you have a high time preference, planning for even predictable eventualities is beyond your scope of interest.
This, of course, is a great way to introduce people to evolutionary concepts regarding human diversity. A thousand generations in a place without snow and inevitably the humans will adapt to a life without snow. It’s not just learned behavior at work. Nature is always tinkering with her creations. As Nick Wade put it, evolution is local, recent and copious. Put people from the real Lagos in a place with variability in the environmental conditions and their biological limitations will be exposed.
Of course, something that seems near universal is the panic that comes before every snowstorm, even in the snowiest places. I went to the market this morning and it was stone silent. The reason is everyone piled in yesterday. I saw this in New England when I lived there, so it is not just an unfamiliarity with snow. This seems to happen everywhere, so maybe the sense of something happening triggers the preparedness instinct in people with low time preference. The itch to prepare always needs to be scratched.
That said, there seems to be a strong desire among some pale folk to never have to deal with winter. I have friends who talk every winter about their desire to move south and never see another snow flake in person. The number of pale retirees in the Sun Belt says a large portion of pale people may be built for winter, but they really hate it. I’ve always found this baffling. I love winter and love the snow. It’s peaceful and beautiful. There’s a simplicity to it that appeals to me. Even in Lagos, I welcome old man winter.
Regarding the ‘I’m moving to Flordia’ cultural meme, I wonder if it’s a Baby Boomer thing?
Also, I lived in the south for a few years. Southern Cities are notoriously bad when it does snow. This is what happened in Raleigh, NC when it snowed. Atlanta is even worse.
It isn’t so much we hate winter, it’s that we fear falling and breaking a hip, worry about our diminished eyesight and reflexes having to deal with driving in snow, and are concerned about weather-imposed immobility and its effect on overall health.
I’ve always loved shoveling snow, but hate driving in it…and in Vibrant territory, it’s risky.
LOL. With the proper vehicle – properly outfitted – I LOVE driving in the snow.
A few years back when MA got a big blizzard – Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency – and banned driving. Well wouldn’t you know it about 11pm the sick cat we had – had a seizure and started convulsing on the kitchen floor. The next town over has a 24×7 emergency vet – so I fired up the Chevy 2500 Suburban 4wd and we hauled him off to the vet. He had to get put to sleep – and on the way back – at about 1am – a local cop started following us.
So it’s 1am – we’re not supposed to be on the road , we’re being followed by a cop, it’s snowing like crazy out , and there’s about 6 inches of snow on the road. The wife starts getting hinky – but I knew that both the front and rear license plates were covered with snow – so there was no way he could have identified who we were from a distance. So I just kept to the actual speed limit – which was about 40mph on this back road – and kept watching him in the rearview.
He kept behind us for a good 5 miles. I think he either expected to be able to catch us – or thought we’d end up in a snowbank and he could then give us a ticket. No such luck for him – but that’s what the correct vehicle – with the correct tires – will do for you.
The only reason I have to have to hate driving in the snow – is because everybody seems to be so goddam bad at it up here. So snow on the road usually means ridiculous delays from all the accidents.
Shoveling snow means backbreaking labor and freezing my ass off. Driving means fun in a heated vehicle. I’ll take driving any day of the week over shoveling.
Z: “I had some errands to run this morning.” I’d rather you say, “I had some stuff to do.” Women run errands.
Nein
Women initiate errands:
er·rand
[ˈerənd]
NOUN
a short journey undertaken in order to deliver or collect something, especially on someone else’s behalf.
“she asked Tim to run an errand for her”
Aha! I knew you had lived on Elm!
Went to the capital city here in the Buckeye for Shabbat . Drove right through the middle of the Somali enclave on the way . A long rifle on the 4th floor of the gubmint apartment complex both ends . The boys was bundled up real good . Couldn’t see no teeth .
…
I grew up in Wisconsin and used to love cold weather. We hitchhiked all over in subzero weather–literally limb if not life threatening.
Now I make furniture for a living in my unheated garage. I’ll take a 100° summer afternoon over a cold winter morning any day of the week and twice on Friday.
God bless you Z man but I’m one of those damn rebs who never saw snow. Don’t mind visiting it but don’t won’t to wake to it every day. Wish you could convince the rest of the northerners to stay home and just send a check and their daughters South. A man can wish can’t he? Oh and keep up the good work I’m always happy to see a post from you on Western Rifle Association!
I, too, love the cold and snow. Grew up in the DC burbs so it was infrequent, but I do remember a number of big storms. College in MA – lots of snow and fires on a winter evening – and you knew Spring had arrived when you saw buds on a tree branch along with lingering snow. Learned to drive stick shift in Moscow – and drove on ice half the year!
I enjoy a variety of seasons, but would prefer to limit true summer heat (85+) to only a few weeks a year. So naturally we live in the DFW area where summer lasts from May through October, and any given “winter” month the temps veer from the 40s to the low 70s. If we ever get to retire or even move, I’d prefer a northern clime but will settle for the Ozarks – just no more Texas heat. Florida – full of Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Haitians, dindus, and east coast Jews – is my vision of hell on earth (spent a week of consular training in Miami and have never had the desire to return for any reason).
Those Jews vote twice every cycle. Absentee up north, and then always in a hurry to get to Florida in late October.
If you have a nice snowblower, clearing snow is kind of fun.
Elton John once told that he from an airplane had looked at the snow on the alpe mountains and it reminded him of all the cocaine he had taken in his carrier. Yes, snow gives different associations to people.
Christmas Eve of 1954, I stood guard duty at Inchon. 17 below zero, 20 mph wind, knee-deep snow. I decided right then and there that if I needed hard water, there likely would be a big white box in the kitchen which would provide all I’d ever want.
Hunt up all the warts you can find: I’ll stay way south and smile.
One of my uncles, who was there in 51-52 once remarked he’d never seen a place that could be so hot and so cold.
Born and raised in MA – and have been dealing with snow for my entire 54 years. I’m sick of it. Not because I hate snow – but because all it does is add to my already copious workload. Things I could get done when the weather is say 50 and above – I simply cannot do without an extra heaping application of time and money and effort – when the temperature goes below that and especially below freezing.
Working on the car – which is actually enjoyable to do in 70 degree weather in the driveway – becomes a brutal game of endurance and swearing when the temps are in the 20’s. Trying to do site work (earthmoving) – becomes a hell of a lot harder when the ground is frozen down to 30 inches deep. Getting out of the driveway in the morning – which when there’s no snow on the ground – is a simple backing up exercise with the truck – now becomes an exercise in an hour’s worth of clearing snow.
I know people who say ” I love the snow!!” – yeah well, they’ve obviously got far too much extra time on their hands if you ask me.
I will grant you that – the typical person I hear complaining about the snow – is usually bitching because it cuts into their time watching sportsball.
If the snow would ACTUALLY clear out some of the diversity – I might be more for it. But the way the dynamic is working – is that the diversity is fully funded and supported by taxpayer paid dollars…. their subsidized housing is cleared out paid employees – paid for by me. So…… ONCE AGAIN – the full burden falls on the white man. Because if I don’t get to work – and pay my taxes – so that the diversity can have a clear sidewalk (hence no reason to sue because they can’t do simple things like watch where they’re putting their damn feet) – then there is hell to pay FOR ME.
Time is money. Snow costs time – and it costs me money. I’d be perfectly happy at this stage of my life if it stopped snowing – OR if it snowed so badly I started seeing reports of mass die-offs of “diversity” from cold temps.
This middling ground is nothing but a screw job.
It seems you either get snow and winter or you don’t and no amount of explaining will do the trick for sun lovers, I’m partial to both but living in northern England both are in short supply.
There are a few black “families” living in my neighborhood. The ones across the street don’t rake up the fall leaves, don’t mow their weeds until the dandelions are a 2 feet tall and spread pollen to everyone else’s yard, and no, they don’t showel the snow.
Stereotypes don’t write themselves, people!
I love the winter and the snow. In fact I love every season except summer as each has something natural to enhance it except the summer. In regards to snow storms, it seems like people get a hankering for French toast before every storm.
I’m envious, we have a mild winter in England and no chance of snow, yet. Last year we had the greatest snowfall I can remember in my lifetime. 6 foot drifts were everywhere.
There is much hysteria in the press about the snowfalls in continental Europe and a few related deaths. Only last week they were whining there was not enough snow on the snow runs. Weather remains unpredictable.
I love the crunch of the snow underfoot, early morning or late at night, takes me straight back to childhood.
Bring on the snow!
Even last year here on the Wirral we only got a dusting but its a quick drive into Wales so problem solved.
I like snow and winter too… But hate dealing with bad drivers and morons in the snow.
I grew up in central MA and went to school in Maine. People there knew how to deal with winter weather. In NJ, there are enough idiots to make moving around miserable. Some put on their blinkers and go 5 mph in an inch of snow. Others drive way too fast thinking their fancy SUV will keep them on the road. (Watched a moron launch his Audi Quattro into the woods a few years ago. Isaac Newtoncould have explained how there was no chance he was going to make that turn at that speed with no friction from the road – and no awd or gizmos were going to help.)
Those pale retirees eager to flee winter in the balmy South need to ask themselves, in addition to are they feeling lucky today, how they view the relative merits of that dreaded snu versus all the fun hurricanes leave in their wake.
I’m in Wyoming as I write. It was one degree below zero last night. Glorious. And everything works beautifully here in winter. Roads clear. Stores open for business as usual, no matter what. Life among the pale people is calm.
Ahh, the Lagos snow. Reminds me of my favorite method to cut government: wait for an inch of snow, count heads at the office, fire anybody who isn’t essential enough to come to work.
Week 3: betcha most of the people you know only know there’s a government shutdown because they heard it on the news unless they are a nonessential employee in an affected agency. I bet 90% of the population wouldn’t notice save for the glowing box telling them.
PS: shoveled the drive/walk twice thanks to a double storm in CO.
You read something like a foreign war correspondent. Our public correspondents live securely behind walls of every sort. Advantage Lagos.
The reaction will be instantaneous.
The next nitwit I hear say, “I can hardly wait for the snow”…*schwap* *schwap!*– instant bitchslap!
Since I was born in East L.A., it’s, like, “Dude! Like, what is this WHITE sh*t!?!”
Update: ok, here in central VA, I finally get to wear my snowboots and my toe warmers. Goshdam I love Toastie-Toes.
I stole the wife’s tasseled nordic cap.
Does this hat make my head look fat?
Zman
Whilst I would have no issue with (most of) the readers of this blog moving into my neck of the woods, I cannot encourage a general migration southward. There is, alas, a sizable subspecies of northeasterner who, having fled his native climes immediately seeks to modify his new environment into a replica of that which he fled. NO. Tell them instead to shelter in place and await the improvement in winters glow bull warming is sure to bring.
I cannot encourage a general migration southward.
Another good reason: with all those people in the South, the country might begin to tilt in that direction, and then Chicago would slide into New Orleans.
Hank Johnson is a sadly unheeded prophet.
It’s why I think you should vote where you are born. If you move from Massachusetts to South Carolina, you are barred from voting in your new state. You can vote in your old state, if they will let you. Your kids can vote if born in South Carolina, of course. If nothing else, it forces the new comers to respect their new home. It would give the natives a chance to repel the invasion by forcing the invaders to assimilate.
I think that was the rule in Switzerland. Your rights was limited to the kanton you were born in. If you moved to a new one you had no rights until those who lived there had voted to accept you to have rights. I don´t think it is the case today but they still vote if foreigners shall have citizenship.A Dutch citizen who have lived there for 33.years and complained about the noise for the local tradition to use bells on cows was refused citizenship in a local vote.https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/14/swiss-citizenship-woman-denied-cowbells/96398518/
Like the guy who was refused Swiss citizenship because he often left his garage door open. “No Swiss would do that!”
I knew it! The no true Scotsman defense in argument is absolutely valid! I always believed it.
IIRC there was also a woman, a long time non citizen Swiss resident, whose citizenship application was denied essentially because her neighbors thought she was a busybody and a pest. You’ve got to love that.
I would add additional requirements: Must be: over the age of 35, currently married / never divorced, have a child, and be male.
Born and raised in sunny Southern California, to me and few remaining white locals, we love the snow and even rain when we can get it. Trust me, sunny weather 95% of the year will drive you nuts. it’s not normal to walk around on Christmas day in a short sleeve shirt. We used to get a bit of snow in December and January but it most stopped almost 20 years ago outside of the Mountains. Go back 30 years and we were getting snow even in February and March. That’s all gone now with the climate shift. Maybe with the Solar Minimum kicking in, it will change.
I can’t stand the perky weatherman who in the middle of a drought get excited by another day of hot, sunny weather.
Nor do I understand those whites who want to move away from family to some AZ retirement community that has all the life of a cemetery. It’s just a good way to check out of life early. American whites are damn weird. Look old people hanging out with old people all the time isn’t good.
Retiring to Palm Springs you say? Think long and hard. That’s in the middle of the desert. Do you like spending your spring and summer and fall indoors because it’s too damn hot to go outside? But you can get that kind of existence anywhere where you’re stuck inside. Idiots.
Palm Springs is the gayest gay gay semi-wealthy male place on earth. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
An Atlanta native, I lived in central New Jersey for several years in the late 60’s, early 70’s. I was impressed at the efficiency of snow removal. Seemed like it always started at night so about zero dark thiry, you’d hear the plows and by time to go to work, the streets would just be wet. Of course, by the time I got back to Georgia, my alfa was a rustbucket due to the salt. I have a couple of stories about being out when it hadn’t been cleared but, someother time..Studded snow tires were a wonderful thing.
I like snow and winter, but not in a big city. As a kid on a farm, snow and cold were problems to solve–interesting challenges every day–but the landscape was pretty to look at. In a city, snow quickly turns to piles of dingy slush illuminated by artificial light in the long nights. Winter weather does curb for a season the homicidal proclivities of the Vibrant, which is some compensation for the ugliness, but not enough make me like it.
Long ago, in a district far away, I started my career(?) in law enforcement on the west side of Chicago, a Lagos on steroids. As a new, pasty crime fighter, it always baffled me when the indigenous folk (and people), would walk in the middle of the street, even on bright, sunny days.
Early on, I asked one of these creatures why it was that they persisted on walking where they did.
The answer was, if the police give chase, or their cohorts start shooting, they have several escape routes that they can use. They didn’t want to get pinned against one particular side of the street.
It’s a survival thing.
Love the snow as well .Reminds me of my youth. Probably the joy we had with the first snowfall and the eagerness to get out and play.
Have really gotten tired of people bitching about it and the damn weather people carrying on like it’s Armageddon ! Speaking of the vibrant types . . . . There was a push here in the city a few years ago trying to get people to clear off their walks. It was supposed to be a $50 fine and surprisingly enough the local news highlighted a black City councilor who was a prime offender. When asked about the neglected walkway in front of his house he responded it was part of his people’s culture not to shovel.
The interview was conducted with him standing in the middle of the street.
“Snow accumulation in Lagos; Women, minorities hardest hit”
You live in Lagos???
You have to be a regular reader to get the joke. He is my “neighbor” actually. I live in Sodom on Potomac (DC), he lives in Baltimore, AKA Body More, AKA Lagos.
But the analogy is apt, negroes took a high functioning city and turned it into a run down skeleton of its former self. Hiroshima which was hit by a nuclear weapon is a functional paradise compared to Bal’mer. Ditto Detroit, Camden, Newark, etc etc. They are a bioweapon by any metric one could measure by.
H.L. Mencken is spinning so fast in his grave he could generate electricity for the entire city.
Lagos on the Chesapeake; AKA Bodymore, Murderland; AKA Baltimore, Peoples Democratic Republic of Maryland.
It’s about an hour north of Mordor on the Potomac. Except at rush hour.
Seems to me the issue is that in may tropical regions the temperature is essentially uniform. Northern European types can handle both hot and cold. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day sun. It’s not so much temperature I worry about as sunshine and sunshine mostly, but not always, goes along with heat.
One aspect of robustness is the willingness to attack hardship with serious intent and even eagerness. This also promotes high self esteem because you demonstrate competence and worth in the instant. And nature rewards this behavior via your continued survival and hopefully successful reproduction.
In our modern world, opportunities to overcome hardship are fewer and should be relished when they present themselves. The species marches forward when our environment demands this of us.
The black population of Baltimore is not adapted for a snowy climate. They are a fish out of water and behave accordingly. Most of them are tethered there by welfare addiction or they would naturally migrate to a more suitable climate.
Winter is back to basics time:
Environment>Evolution>Genes>Culture>Society.
This is simple enough for even the morons at Harvard to understand.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2006/07/how-darwins-finches-got-their-beaks/
I personally know those people who did the research into Darwin’s finches and I can assure you that none of them are morons. They are some of the nicest people you’d ever meet. There are plenty of morons at Harvard but the majority are not in the STEM fields. Comments like this make you look like an asshole.
So what you’re saying is that the allure of free shit overcomes natural instincts?
Maybe then we should start offering them “free all expenses paid vacations to sunny Lagos ” (the REAL one) – and then revoke their citizenship once they’re safely dumped on the continent of Africa.
They keep yelling for “reparations” – I say REPATRIATION is the word everybody should be yelling
The cold and snow generally keeps diversity off the streets. Crime usually goes down too as the schwoogs stay inside with the free heat. The observation about them always walking in the street is universal. Here in Baltimore and when I was in Brooklyn…every snow they just walk in the middle of the road, no matter how busy…anything to avoid getting something white on them…since none of them ever shovel anything.
I have never had a milk and toilet paper sandwich, but since milk, bread and TP are the three things that sell out ahead of a snow storm, there must be a lot of people eating them.
We haven’t had much snow this year up here in Western New England. Even as I reach my mid 60’s I still like winter- snow, frozen ponds and rinks. And yes, snow blowing and shoveling. I love walking into a rink on a cold January night for a high school or college game. (UMASS #1 YEE-HAH!) I’m a bit less tolerant of the cold, but still like winter. Here’s a Western Mass snow song: https://youtu.be/PekfU_C3Rz4
Also, snow raises the light level. That’s a big deal, when you have only a couple of hours of daylight.
You poor guys got hit even worse than we got it in Chicago. You’re more than welcome to mine. If you’re into snow clearing, my snow is available. Shovel and snow-blower provided. Hot chocolate and snacks, too.
The best American poem about snow and winter (it’s a metaphor, I know, I know, but still, c’est exacte, as the frogs say) is “The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens, with its great opening line, “One must have a mind of winter…” (marvelous pun by the way). Fun fact: despite its serpentine complexity, the entire poem is only one sentence. It’s a bit like the 10-minute continuous opening tracking shot in “Touch of Evil” by Mistah Welles.
But the poet Frank O’Hara famously said of winter, “It’s like a locomotive on the march, / The season of distress and clarity…” which I think is priceless, and then his great conclusion:
“But no more fountains and no more rain,
And the stores stay open terribly late.”
Just beautiful – thank you!
I’m partial to Robert Frost and we all know “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” but he also wrote an hilarious poem called “Brown’s Descent,” which I recommend be read aloud among friends, by the fireplace and preferably after a few rounds of good whisky.
The number of pale retirees in the sunbelt says a large portion of pale people may be built for winter, but they really hate it. I’ve always found this baffling.
Well, “retirees” may be the key word. I read (in a general history by Niall Ferguson) that the average lifespan in England before the Industrial Revolution was 37.
Maybe nature didn’t plan for us to get much past that. For young fellows, the cold recalls them to their youth and vigor. But a lot of old guys probably just get intimations of the Winter Cull.
I used to like the snow. And rain–cold rain, too! But I’m the wrong side of 37 and not digging them so much now.
The lifespan of humans that make it to adulthood has been the same for thousands of years, 70 to 80 years. The average age has to do with childhood mortality which was extremely high. If you had two children and one died in infancy and the other at live to be 80 the average age would be 40. Socrates was in his seventies when he drank Hemlock and nobody thought he was fantastically old because he was surrounded by equally old men. It’s a common and Insidious misconception that I think is contributes to people’s disregard for the past.
A lot of wamen died in childbirth or from infections soon after. That also drove down the average age.
And men died in war. If you made it to 40 you’d most likely have another 30 to 40 years
In conducting genealogical research on my New England ancestors, all of whom seem to have come from England, with a couple of French Huguenots (Protestants), they appear to have lived well into their 80s and some 90s, both men and women. Everyone got here before 1700! Lived in crappy cold/wet climate of CT and RI, too! Didn’t seem to bother them as they moved to Vermont and upstate NY after the American Revolution, then headed west.
Ditto here. Winthrop fleet 1629. Was astonished how long lived and hardy they were…if alive after childhood.
Retirees in the sunbelt is a relatively new thing. 2, at most 3 generations. My parents were of the Silent Generation. They moved from New England to Palm Springs to retire. I’m not sure of percentages, but lots of their friends headed south. 2/3rd of my aunts and uncles moved south.
The rest of my entire ancestral line are buried in churchyards and graveyards from southern New England to Quebec.
I’m not at retirement age yet but I’m getting close enough to start thinking about it and discussing it with friends and family. Of 4 siblings one plans on heading for AZ. Everyone else is planning on staying put or moving even further north.
If you peruse magazines geared towards older folks, the ads for retirement communities in ME, NH, VT, MN, MT, WA, OR, etc… outstrip the sunbelt ads by several multiples.
Since national magazines tend to localize their advertisements by the locale where they are sold, as reference I don’t buy and read them in the northern latitudes; I purchase them in LA and San Francisco.
Contrary to popular belief, on some level the Boomer “knows”.
>>>retirement communities in ME, NH, VT, MN, MT, WA, OR, etc… on some level the Boomer “knows”.
Yep. Very seriously looking at South Dakota.
Suggest you not commit to the northern plains till you’ve lived there a year.
Spent one winter near Cut Bank!
Well then, you’re no pilgrim. Go for it.
Air conditioning made the southern migration of retirees possible, hence it’s a relatively recent phenomenon. Summers with 100+ degree heat and high humidity are deadly to the elderly otherwise.
In Paul Johnson’s History of the American people, in New England if you survived to 20 you could expect to make it to 65. In the South, 41. Death, even in the north, was not usually defined by old age. The little things that afflict us in our 50’s and 60’s do not grow into big things anymore.
How much adaptation is required to handle winter storms? Apparently more than Detroiters can develop. Whenever I have to venture there within two weeks of a snowstorm, dread overcomes me. Sidestreets are two snowy or frozen ruts which you do not want to give way to oncoming traffic. The rest of the metro area gets along just fine, I wonder why that is.
You’re right about older whites and snow. Very well suited to handling snow but always talking about moving south. To me the heat of the south makes me miserable.
they are actually contracting snow plowing out this year so it might actually get done. had to do that with trash too. white mayor now…
It’s all about the balance. No one wants seasonal affective disorder but winter and cold are borderline healthy psychologically and even physically (short exposures to cold activate brown fat, small boost of testosterone). Or at least it seems that way for us Northern European types. Just none of that Winnipeg frozen blast nonsense.
https://youtu.be/xLlsjEP7L-k
Also tamps down disease and disease carrying vermin and insects.
LOL. Insects maybe.
But I’d like to see you prove that by the amount of mice that live thru the winter in good enough health to sneak into my barn and destroy things while they’re in there.
In the springtime when the snow melts – the ground is covered with the remains of the tunnels the mice used to navigate during the winter.
You couldn’t prove to me that winter kills vermin by the evidence of survival I see every single damn spring.
Sounds like you need more barn cats.
The Derb calls us “ice people” for a reason. We’re adapted to dealing with harsh conditions—it’s in our DNA. Negroes, not so much. If it weren’t for wypipo they’d freeze or starve to death. No fruit falling out of a tree in January in Baltimore or Boston.
Way back when I was first out of high school I worked in a printing plant. One of the older guys I worked was a laborer – but had spent 10 years in the Army (this was 82+ so he would have been in there during the 70’s).
He was stationed in Germany – and had stories about sitting in a hole somewhere along the Fulda Gap facing off the Soviets – in the middle of the winter.
One of the things I will always remember him saying was ” the brothers don’t like the cold!!”. He said they’d be wearing like 3 of those snorkel parkas at a time – and would be so bundled up they couldn’t even move.
At the time I thought it was funny – but it does point to some fundamental differences.
That’s why intelligence is highly correlated with latitude, all over the world.
Well, I may be an “ice person” but my ancestors must have been those Teutons who raided the Iberian penninsula as Rome decayed and learned that warm and dry is way better than freezing cold. F**k snow! I dream of a white ethnostate, but definitely not a white Christmas. I once spent a winter behind the Zion Curtain in SLC with the greatest snowfall on record in 50 years. Even skiing weekly in Park City for $13 midweek did not make up for having to clear snow from the walks and parking lots of a small church on a daily basis with a gas-powered snowblower. Now, when I am tempted to move to lovely white Wyoming from the desert that is Mexifornia, the only thing that gives me pause is all that cursed snow.
I’m a bit south of you in VA, and we were supposed to be subject to the snowpocalypse as well, but we just got freezing rain turning to rain. Cold and wet is the winter standard here at the HQ of the Imperial Navy. Even though I am a transplanted Floridian (of Scandinavian descent) I’d much prefer nice clean snow to the goddamn infernal “wintery mix” we usually get in Hampton Roads.
As for walking in the middle of the street, my mother lives in South Florida, in an area currently being taken over by Haitians. With sidewalks on both sides of the street, they will walk dead center in the road, Wal-Mart bags balanced on their heads. They basically dare you to honk, or get up close to drive around them, so they can curse at you Creole (which sounds like verbal HIV) and bang on your car. In my case, they wind up looking straight into the barrel of a .45, which causes them to scurry over to the sidewalk, muttering. Currently in the process of moving Mom to a new place in redneck central (FloraBama). The Haitians can play their turf dominance games with the Cubans, Latin Americans, and Blacks, South Florida is a lost cause.
If you are ever in the neighborhood I have an extensive Bourbon collection I’d be honored to share..
Good move. Grew up in SF and recall the very first “no go” zone was a Haitian neighborhood just west of the FEC tracks. There were plenty of rough neighborhoods, but the Haitians set a new standard.
Was around a lot of the original group of Cuban emigres growing up. Only later did I come to fully appreciate why they so despised all the other Latin American varietals. The first wave were the Castilian upper classes and in their minds the Dominicans, Venezuelans and Central Americans were something out of Deliverance minus the charm.
Thank you for your observations, Mr. Man. I Enjoyed your post over a cup of hot chocolate after shoveling out four inches from my home in the north suburban (refugee) camp of Chicago. Peace and prosperous wishes to you and yours in 2019. You are not alone.