THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290473
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
There may have been . . . somewhere . . . a winter more protracted than the one now dogging us. If so, it doesn't come to mind.
Oh, here and there a previous winter has had a day severer than those that have beset us this winter, starting way back in November.
But never for sheer incessant contumacity has there been a winter to beat this one that keeps hanging on, its teeth in our vitals, a petulant, insistent, acrimonious, whining old crank. It reminds me of me.
Old timers will tell you of a winter during which the temperature simply dropped out of sight, busting the bulbs of thermometers, so cold everything froze, including the Elizabeth River, shore to shore.
People walked on ice back and forth across the river between Portsmouth and Norfolk. For a while we were one, ice-bound.
Two traits set aside this here winter. One is its sheer length, which apparently is going to extend into midsummer. The other is its insidious wiles.
Storms, hurricanes and whatnot have a way of heading straight toward our shores but, at the last minute, sheering off, sparing us their fury's full brunt.
Two this season seemed so scripted, heading up the coast loaded with snow, then veering to dump it on Richmond, leaving us unscathed with only a white sheeting, an inch or two. But each storm, a scorpion, bore a stinger in its tail.
On Jan. 9, a snowfall blew us a light dusting, a passing kiss; but in late afternoon, manhole covers in Norfolk's downtown streets began exploding, vaulting in air, so many giant tiddly winks or huge iron snowflakes. All the juice at the city's core failed, leaving the business district, including this newspaper, powerless. Experts say the manhole blizzard was coincidental; but they arrived in tandem.
A second storm with a sucker punch befell Feb. 3. It made a feint and took off elsewhere, but the morning after, we arose to find Hampton Roads in a glaze of gleaming ice, 900,000 homes without power, some went a week before coming back on line.
Will spring ever show?
Twice this week we were moved to think so. Monday, nine King Alfred jonquils reared haughty heads along the border. Yet birds, sensing illusory warmth, were mute. By late afternoon the jonquils drooped.
Tuesday was a mite warmer. A few hearty souls shucked to shirt-sleeves only to shrug into coats as cold returned near dusk. A chill, nasty rain plagued us Thursday in everything we tried to do.
What we yearn for is an unabashed spring day when the earth splits its seams and the sun beams, unabated from blue sky flecked with a few shining, sudsy, white clouds, an end to winter's over-long iron reign. by CNB