So far I have been involved in three

I sometimes start writing a blog entry and get sidetracked to the point that it winds up in the "drafts" section of blogger patiently waiting for me to complete it. I have to admit that there are occasions when, by the time I return to the text I find that whatever spirit it was that brought me to the keyboard to express my thoughts has left me and I can't manage to gather them again and organize them into a coherent order that seemed so clear when I started typing. This dear reader is one of those cases, sort of. I started writing this the Sunday after the big snow storm last month. While I am able to pick up where I left off from the saved text, I know there were other points that I wanted too make at the time. Those I'm afraid have faded into oblivion. Yet another reminder that like so many of my friends and relatives I am not as young as I used to be and this is just one of God's ways of letting me know it.

So I find myself this afternoon finishing something that I started over a month ago. I should be outside enjoying the sun but I returned to work this past week and am finding it a bigger challenge than I though. My body is having a hard time adjusting and I am battling fatigue much more than I though I would be. I do manage to relax by beating on the keyboard though so I beg your indulgence as I once again ramble on.

This blog entry was originally started on February 7th 2010 at 1:12 PM in the afternoon.

Well they are saying that this weekends snow storm has been the third largest in the Pittsburgh. Exceeded only by the "blizzard of 1993" and the "Thanksgiving snow of 1950". Now I didn't directly experience the 1950 storm at least not that I remember. My mother was waiting to go to the hospital to find out if I would be male or female when it struck. I spent the first twenty some years listening to tales of the big storm and how deep the snow was that year. Also what all my Dad and Grandfather did to keep the roads clear from my house, which was the last block on a dead end street and seldom saw a snow plow or salt truck, in case it was necessary to make a fast trip to the hospital. Something that did in fact manifest its self resulting in my "being involved" without any first hand knowledge of the events of the day. That is a story that I'll tell another day.

I vividly remember the storm of 1993 watching the snow pile up by the minute and thinking that it would take me until spring to dig my car out of its parking spot. What a strange thing it was to see an entire city and its surrounding areas brought to a grinding halt. All normal day to day business just stopped. Oh, there were exceptions to be sure most of which involved medical and emergency services workers. For the most part though Pittsburgh was a ghost town, something rarely seen in these modern times. I remember as a boy when the Pennsylvania "blue laws" were in full force and I could ride my bicycle down through the business section of town in the afternoon or evening on a Sunday and see almost no on on the streets and very few vehicles traveling on them. It truly was a different time, one that I admit that I long for on occasion.

Now we come to the great snow of 2010. Since I have some current health problems that keep me indoors and off the highways most of the time my world is restricted to the intersection of Fifth Street and Maryland Avenue which is were I rode out the duration of the storm. I did follow the "outside world" talking to some fellow amateur radio operators as well as listening to radio, television and my public safety scanners. Often times they, the scanners, give me a much better picture of what is going on during storms such as this one than the local news media who in order to gain ratings will attempt to whip the general public into a frenzy that is a cross between the sky is falling and the end is nigh.

We were fortunate in that this event began on a Friday afternoon and really didn't get a full head of steam until after the evening rush hour when most people had made their way home and were off the highways. There were still plenty of those that really had no choice, or so they thought, to be out on the roads when the brunt of the storm hit the area that found themselves in situations that they had not planned for.

There were a number of people who became entrench on the Pennsylvania Turnpike that had to be rescued by snowmobile. I listened to fire departments respond to a house fire that involved two burn victims that they could not reach with the emergency vehicles so they sent someone to get a police officers four wheel drive pickup truck from the station and that got them to a position where they could bring the patient to the ambulance to transport to the hospital. All of this reminding me that situations like this one sometimes bring out the best in people. I heard a number of calls where a driver had become stuck and one or more good Samaritans had come to his or her aid and then just moved on.

Will this be the last "big snow" of 2010? Only time will answer that question. In my years on earth almost all of which were spent in Pittsburgh I have seen snow on Easter Sunday and beyond. We can only hope that this winter which appears to be on track to provide new entries in the record books will soon be one of those memories that we tend to reminisce about years after they take place with much fonder memories than they deserve. Stay warm if you can.