Sixteen Tons and whadaya get?
By
Rory Ryan-hcpress@cinci.rr.com
You haul Sixteen Tons, whadaya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go,
I owe my soul to the company store.
Hope springs eternal. With apologies to Alexander Pope, but some of us hope spring is eternal. Or summer. Anything but winter.
On this 27th day of February – a month that is a wicked stepsister to the frigid witch that is January – I hereby declare that winter is over. Done. Fini. History. Nada. No mas. As of this moment, spring has sprung.
There are three unmistakable signs that spring has arrived in southern Ohio.
• Freshly Firestoned and Bridgestoned skunks become part of the rural highway roadkill landscape. (There’s a certain Pennsylvania groundhog that’s going to join them, too.)
• Reds pitchers and catchers report to spring training.
• Taxes owed and/or tax refunds slip into coffee break conversations, as do “bubble” teams for the NCAA basketball tournament. (No, UC is not a bubble team.)
And if Old Man Winter knows what’s good for him, he’ll leave us the heck alone. Consider: This month alone, it’s a reasonable estimate that I’ve shoveled, by hand, 16 tons of snow.
Not to be confused with Tennessee Ernie Ford’s classic song about No. 9 coal, I reached this mathematical conclusion by reckoning I’ve shoveled 1,000 (or more) shovels full of snow. If a full shovel of snow weighs roughly 32 pounds (give or take), that’s 32,000 pounds of snow. I learned back at Belfast Elementary that there are 2,000 pounds in one (short) ton. Ergo (a word I did not learn at Belfast), I’ve shoveled 16 tons of No. 9 snow this month.
And while I may be guilty of shoveling a bit of something else from time to time in this column, I’m not the least bit happy about this Winter of My Discontent.
If January’s 31 days weren’t enough, February’s 28 have put me into a serious mental funk. I’ve yelled at the snow. I’ve cursed it. And, yes, I admit, by God, I may have helped our three dogs color it. We have 53-plus snow-covered acres and if the dogs and I had the stamina, they’d all be the color of Old Yeller. (Rest his soul.)
Snow and snowflakes, as our friend Jim Surber so eloquently expresses, are wonderful creations of the Lord. But too much of a good thing has its drawbacks.
Last week alone, I pushed cars that were stuck in the snow, pulled on chains connected to cars that were similarly stuck, kicked a few bumpers of likewise immovable objects, walked off into a four-foot snow drift, and got hit on the head and shoulders by at least a half a dozen icicles. (Icicles have been known to put people’s eyes out. Just ask Ralphie.)
I have had it with winter. It’s gotten so bad that last week at a southern Ohio high school, I spoke in a loud voice to a basketball official and may have suggested he was snow-blind that afternoon. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve gone to Web MD just to check to see if I’ve got Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Turns out, I do.
Web MD says “With SAD, the lack of sunlight causes the brain to work overtime producing melatonin, the hormone that regulates your body clock and sleep patterns and a hormone that has been linked to depression. That’s why all things considered, the farther north from the equator you live, the greater the risk you’ll have some degree of winter depression. Only about 1 percent of Florida residents have some winter-specific discomfort or depression, compared to about half of those living in uppermost parts of the U.S.”
But I’m better now. Really.
Since I’ve publicly declared the end of the 2009-10 winter season, I am at peace with Nature. I’m calm. Relaxed. Laid back. Cruisin’. Chillin’. (No, on second thought, NOT chillin’.) Groovin’. Yeah, far from groovin’!
Take that, you Punxsutawney Possumhead.
Maybe I should have declared the end of winter six weeks ago.
Rory Ryan is publisher and editor of The Highland County Press.[[In-content Ad]]
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go,
I owe my soul to the company store.
Hope springs eternal. With apologies to Alexander Pope, but some of us hope spring is eternal. Or summer. Anything but winter.
On this 27th day of February – a month that is a wicked stepsister to the frigid witch that is January – I hereby declare that winter is over. Done. Fini. History. Nada. No mas. As of this moment, spring has sprung.
There are three unmistakable signs that spring has arrived in southern Ohio.
• Freshly Firestoned and Bridgestoned skunks become part of the rural highway roadkill landscape. (There’s a certain Pennsylvania groundhog that’s going to join them, too.)
• Reds pitchers and catchers report to spring training.
• Taxes owed and/or tax refunds slip into coffee break conversations, as do “bubble” teams for the NCAA basketball tournament. (No, UC is not a bubble team.)
And if Old Man Winter knows what’s good for him, he’ll leave us the heck alone. Consider: This month alone, it’s a reasonable estimate that I’ve shoveled, by hand, 16 tons of snow.
Not to be confused with Tennessee Ernie Ford’s classic song about No. 9 coal, I reached this mathematical conclusion by reckoning I’ve shoveled 1,000 (or more) shovels full of snow. If a full shovel of snow weighs roughly 32 pounds (give or take), that’s 32,000 pounds of snow. I learned back at Belfast Elementary that there are 2,000 pounds in one (short) ton. Ergo (a word I did not learn at Belfast), I’ve shoveled 16 tons of No. 9 snow this month.
And while I may be guilty of shoveling a bit of something else from time to time in this column, I’m not the least bit happy about this Winter of My Discontent.
If January’s 31 days weren’t enough, February’s 28 have put me into a serious mental funk. I’ve yelled at the snow. I’ve cursed it. And, yes, I admit, by God, I may have helped our three dogs color it. We have 53-plus snow-covered acres and if the dogs and I had the stamina, they’d all be the color of Old Yeller. (Rest his soul.)
Snow and snowflakes, as our friend Jim Surber so eloquently expresses, are wonderful creations of the Lord. But too much of a good thing has its drawbacks.
Last week alone, I pushed cars that were stuck in the snow, pulled on chains connected to cars that were similarly stuck, kicked a few bumpers of likewise immovable objects, walked off into a four-foot snow drift, and got hit on the head and shoulders by at least a half a dozen icicles. (Icicles have been known to put people’s eyes out. Just ask Ralphie.)
I have had it with winter. It’s gotten so bad that last week at a southern Ohio high school, I spoke in a loud voice to a basketball official and may have suggested he was snow-blind that afternoon. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve gone to Web MD just to check to see if I’ve got Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Turns out, I do.
Web MD says “With SAD, the lack of sunlight causes the brain to work overtime producing melatonin, the hormone that regulates your body clock and sleep patterns and a hormone that has been linked to depression. That’s why all things considered, the farther north from the equator you live, the greater the risk you’ll have some degree of winter depression. Only about 1 percent of Florida residents have some winter-specific discomfort or depression, compared to about half of those living in uppermost parts of the U.S.”
But I’m better now. Really.
Since I’ve publicly declared the end of the 2009-10 winter season, I am at peace with Nature. I’m calm. Relaxed. Laid back. Cruisin’. Chillin’. (No, on second thought, NOT chillin’.) Groovin’. Yeah, far from groovin’!
Take that, you Punxsutawney Possumhead.
Maybe I should have declared the end of winter six weeks ago.
Rory Ryan is publisher and editor of The Highland County Press.[[In-content Ad]]