Blizzard!!! Prairie Home Companion!!!

When I see US blizzard news I always think of Garrison Keillor for some reason:

The snow was thick in Lake Woebegone....thick like Old Grandma Kemph's homemade mayonnaise....thick enough for Jess Heismeinshiffel to pull his battered Chevy step-side around behind the flaking cedar barn and put on the snow chains handed down for generations that to him always signalled a very long Presbyterian spell of prayer and icy misery. 

Now here's little Mary Sinclair and her glockenspiel to serenade with all five verses of Abide With Me.

*grins*

That made me smile. I don't think I've been away from the snow long enough to think of anything but how long it takes to dig a car out of nearly 2 feet of snow. It takes about 20-30 minutes if it's not heavy snow.

When I see US blizzard news I always think of Garrison Keillor for some reason:

The snow was thick in Lake Woebegone....thick like Old Grandma Kemph's homemade mayonnaise....thick enough for Jess Heismeinshiffel to pull his battered Chevy step-side around behind the flaking cedar barn and put on the snow chains handed down for generations that to him always signalled a very long Presbyterian spell of prayer and icy misery. 

Now here's little Mary Sinclair and her glockenspiel to serenade with all five verses of Abide With Me.

I read that in Garrison Keillor's voice, inside my head. I do adore that man! Such a talented storyteller!

I read that in Garrison Keillor's voice, inside my head. I do adore that man! Such a talented storyteller!

I still listen to PHC from time to time....it and Cartalk always immediately make me think of driving somewhere and flipping through the stations and settling in for a relaxed hour.

how long it takes to dig a car out of nearly 2 feet of snow. It takes about 20-30 minutes if it's not heavy snow.

You know coming from Florida.....it was only a couple of years ago that I read about the Northern thing of placing items around your dug-out car spot....and the sort of system that has developed around the practice. I mean, I can only imagine how irksome it would be to dig out your car, nip around to the 7-11, and then get back to find somebody has whipped into the spot right in front of your house. So you pull your grill out there and a lawn chair and block it in. Apparently moving the items is a near-capital crime.

If I had visited the North in the winter before I read about this, it would have been very puzzling; why are these grills and chairs and assorted things out in the road?

Ah, Garrison Keillor.  Reminds me of Sunday morning drives. 

Certainly not missing the snow and freezing temperatures right about now.

I still listen to him from time to time, and watch on youtube. I can only imagine being his kid or grandkid at bedtime. No need for books when you  have a master storyteller in the family.

You know coming from Florida.....it was only a couple of years ago that I read about the Northern thing of placing items around your dug-out car spot....and the sort of system that has developed around the practice. I mean, I can only imagine how irksome it would be to dig out your car, nip around to the 7-11, and then get back to find somebody has whipped into the spot right in front of your house. So you pull your grill out there and a lawn chair and block it in. Apparently moving the items is a near-capital crime.

If I had visited the North in the winter before I read about this, it would have been very puzzling; why are these grills and chairs and assorted things out in the road?

I'd only recently saw that as something that was done. Oddly enough because of the news a few years ago. haha. I lived in a small town so there isn't that big of a deal about it. I can say that it REALLY annoyed me to have our neighbours decide to park in front of my house because there was a clear/shoveled parking space there. Rather than in front of their own that they hadn't shoveled. *shakes head* Lazy college students. (she says when she was only a few years older then they were)

That is very true about the saving of cleared parking spaces with old lawn chairs, etc.  People have come to blows on more than one instance,

What I hate is when you get out there and shovel out your driveway and then the street plow goes by and piles it all back in.  So you go out and shovel again and then the sidewalk plow comes and leaves huge boulders of snow in your driveway.  So then there you are out in the street dodging oncoming plows trying to make enough of a path to get your car out.  (We had to do it manually as the snow blower my dad had was electric and pretty much useless)

Not quite the same but:

CHEEKY BOLLARDS put up by residents to bag ‘exclusive’ parking spaces in Cambridge

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/CHEEKY-BOLLARDS-residents-bag-8216-exclusive-8217/story-25047474-detail/story.html

/Cheeky Bollards added to list of possible band names...