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 again. I have friends who talk every winter about their desire to move south and never have to deal with winter again. 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. 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.
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.
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… Read more »
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.
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.
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.
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…
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… Read more »
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.
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… Read more »
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…”… Read more »
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.
Also, snow raises the light level. That’s a big deal, when you have only a couple of hours of daylight.
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
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.
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… Read more »
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/
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.
You live in Lagos???
“Snow accumulation in Lagos; Women, minorities hardest hit”
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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.
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.
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… Read more »
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.