The City(ies) That Work(s)

In the aftermath of one of the worst winter storms to hit the Midwest this…ah...month, I am once again awed by the resilience of Midwestern cities. …or is it apathy?

I mean no ill to cities in other parts of the country. I’m certain their people are just as hardy and fortitudinous as any other cities’ denizens are. But, in the face of winter storms of biblical proportions (I dunno…were there blizzards in the bible?), people of the Midwest, and of the Northeast, too, simply say, “Eh,” and set their alarm clocks to wake them half an hour earlier than usual, and they go about their lives.

Life goes on here. What’s that? Twelve inches of snow expected? Better put my boots and the shovel by the door so I can dig the car out in the morning to get to work on time! Say again? Temperatures in the single digits tomorrow? Better wear the long socks, then!

The dismal forecasts of winter, no matter how apocalyptic, just don’t seem to faze people in northern cities. When it gets cold, we put on coats. If it gets REALLY cold, we put on MORE coats! When it snows we put on galoshes…or we don’t. To HELL with the snow! Business rarely, if ever, stops. Schools close in only the most treacherous conditions. Traffic slows to a crawl, but it does keep moving.

When I was in grade school and then high school, I would be glued to local morning radio during bad winter weather, just waiting to hear my school or school district’s name to be called, just waiting for the elusive “snow day” to be bestowed upon me and my fellow students, only to be thwarted repeatedly from the paradise of a day of idleness.

Any lifelong Chicago area resident above age 35 will likely remember the “Blizzard of ’79.” I was a freshman in high school, and the forecast was so dire, the snow falling so heavily that I was certain to finally hear my school’s name called out by the radio announcer. My mother assured me, as she trudged out the door on her way to work that morning(!), that I WOULD see the inside of a classroom that day, but I sat staring at that radio more intently than I’ve ever stared at a television set, like a gambler who just dropped his last dollar coin in the slot waits for the triple sevens. There were, on this particular day, so many schools closed that the radio station opted to read the names of only those schools which remained open. And, yes, finally, I did indeed hear my school’s name mentioned on the radio that day.

Since then I’ve resigned myself to the reality that winter does not stop Chicago, the City that Works, the City that Works Through Winter. Neither does it stop New York City, Boston, Buffalo or Minneapolis. The people just. keep. moving.

I lived four years in the Deep South. Consider my reaction, this winter-hardened northern boy, when, in the rare instance of the next day’s prediction of snow flurries – FLURRIES – the small south Georgia city where I lived cancelled EVERYTHING! Schools, government offices, city services, MAIL DELIVERIES, for the love of Pete, all shut down on the CHANCE of a few snowflakes falling to the ground!

Let’s give that city and other southern cities some credit. The buildings there are not equipped for the cold weather, nor are their city infrastructures. The schools, uninsulated against the rare cold, have to close for the safety of the children. The cities don’t budget for snow plows or rock salt as it would be a waste of taxpayers’ money to prepare for a once-every-few-years occurrence, so when there’s the potential for icy roads, the cities advise people to stay off of them because they won’t be cleared of ice or snow.

But for someone who grew up in the ready-for-what-nature-could-throw-at-us north, it was both a shock and an amusing state of affairs.

In one regard I feel sorry for the kids who grow up in the South, and other warm-climate cities. When severe winter weather snakes down into those parts, the people there are unprepared or, at best, under-prepared, and are likely to keep their kids indoors for their safety and protection. We northern kids developed thicker blood and a hearty appetite for snowball fights and sledding, and, when the temperature crept up from the arctic chill into the low- to mid- forties… Hell! That was short-sleeve shirt weather!

Today my southern contemporaries bask in the relative warmth of temperate winters, but when the Ol’ Man of the North treks his way south, they hunker down under layers of blankets and hibernate for the duration. I and my fellow northerners simply sigh, start the car and scrape the ice off our windshields while the engine warms up. And we go off to… work?

...there’s definitely something wrong with this picture.