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J.C. Milliman
Bad Weather Driving: Enchanted Evenings

 

    "Some enchanted evening ...."

    "YOU WILL SEE A STRAAAAANGOOOOOOOOR!!!!!"

    Oh Dark Thirty and I there I was ... in the truck, singing at the top of my voice, stopped in the middle of the street … blocking both lanes …

    "YOU WILL HEAR HER LAUGHING …."

    A screeching car horn eventually broke into my sleep-deprived surreal consciousness. The horn. Why was that guy blowing his horn at me? That didn’t go with the music. It was strings, dammit, not brass.

    And for crying out loud, trying to accurately mimic Giorgio Tozzi’s accent is no easy task I assure you and I certainly didn’t need some yayhoo adding brass at this point. Philistine.

    "ACROSS A CROWDED ROOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM…."

    Being the discerning opera critic she is, the dog didn’t care for it, either. She prefers my rendition of "We Sail the Ocean Blue" from HMS Pinafore to anything sung by Giorgio Tozzi.

    Who? C’mon, Giorgio Tozzi supplied Rossano Brazzi's singing voice for the character Emile de Beque in South Pacific (the movie). Two Italian guys playing a French dude. Whatever. Stay with me.

    I successfully resisted the temptation to flip him off (the other driver, not Giorgio Tozzi), noting to myself that such juvenile responses to stress, while fleetingly gratifying, ultimately did nothing constructive. And beside all that Gandhi stuff, didn’t he know I was in the middle of a sleep deprivation experiment and not really sure of whether he was really there or not?

    For all I knew, Earl the Wilsonesque (c'mon, didn't you see Tom Hanks in Caste Away??) antenna ball I was taking orders from (and who was annoyingly critiquing my plowing technique) could tell me he was just more snow that needed to be pushed off the road. Noisy snow, but snow none-the-less.

    So instead, I just gave him a "look" (ask my daughters), put the lever from "R" to "D" and dropped the plow – none of which I did in particularly expeditious fashion.

    I knew why I was out there (well, I thought I knew…), but what on Earth was he doing out in such atrocious weather? And at this hour -- looking for Mitzi Gaynor???

    "AND SOMEHOW YOU’LL KNOWWWWWW….."

    Shoot, the last place anyone saw Mitzi Gaynor was on Hollywood Squares. But more to the point, didn’t he know that playing games with a sleep-deprived snowplow driver wasn’t a great idea?

    In fact, it generally falls in to the "bad idea" category whether we’re talking some redneck (like me) in a pickumuptruck with two halves of a 55-gallon drum welded together hanging from the front bumper by duct tape and safety wire, or a State highway department employee driving a state-of the-art tandem-axle Class B dump truck with digital joystick-controlled V and wing plows.

    It’s all about public safety.

    And before I get rolling and stomping too many sensitive toes here, I will admit the majority of drivers out there were good to stay home during the snow storm and not contribute to problems on the road.

    I’m talking mainly to folks who, despite the numerous warnings to the contrary, insisted on exercising their privilege of using public roads during an incredibly bad storm.

    Going to Lowe’s, Mickey D’s, Blockbuster or Starbucks ain’t got nuthin’ to do with it. Allowing the Leonardtown Volunteer Rescue Squad to rescue your sorry butt after you botch lighting the fondue and squirt flaming Sterno all over yourself does.

    Oh, where you doing something else during the storm?

    I digress. The point, gentle reader, is to keep the roads open for emergency responders and other priority users, not for convenience. Obviously, a point lost on my four-wheeled friend in the snow-covered Bimmer.

    Yes, I was blocking the road, albeit temporarily. Perhaps, just maybe, I was doing something useful like plowing snow.

    By golly, you’d think he was, though. And several others just like him. In the middle of a raging sleet storm, was it so important to get that cappuccino or go to some lounge (obscure reference that makes sense to trendy So. Maryland readers) that’s probably (and wisely) closed anyway?

    For the most part, the vast majority of drivers displayed good headwork by electing to cancel their sorties during the storm. And for good reason – I had 4-wheel drive, plenty of weight, loads of traction and a snowplow and I got stuck four times. Thanks again to my friend Beau and his mammoth Toyota SUV thing. Pride? What pride? It beats digging.

    The weather guessers were pretty much smack on and had given us plenty of heads up for this one so no one should have needed to "run out" for essentials during it.

    And by essentials, I mean stupid stuff like milk and bread.

    Yet, there were those who felt the need to be out. Not to be discriminatory, but most of them seemed like their two or three months of driving experience ill-prepared them for sharing a snowy/sleety road with hallucinating plow truck drivers (like me). Shoot, teenieboppers with cellphones in one hand, cokes in the other and the wheel held by a friend is scary enough. Throw in snow, darkness and bad traction and I may never sleep again!

    Sure, the Southern Maryland plow truck drivers don’t get the practice the guys in Minnesota or Maine do, but they do all right at a big, dangerous job.

    What they don’t need are yahoos in hard-to-see four-wheelers playing games.

    Next snow, take pity on the snow pushers who work long hours keeping the roads open during storms. They may not get to your particular road for a while. They do main roads first, roads that feed onto the main routes next and feeder roads (streets in developments, for example) last.

    It’s all about serving the needs of the many before serving the needs of the few, or so says Mr. Spock anyway. So do your part and stay out of the way! When the authorities tell ya to stay off the road … STAY OFF THE ROAD. Stay home and enjoy a nice fire, movie and your favorite adult beverage.

    So what you come from Maine and you grew up driving in the snow? Whoopty doo, so did I. But if you absolutely have to be out, look for the yellow flasher and let us do our work.

    "YOU’LL KNOW EEEEVEN THEN…."

    And the yayhoo in the Bimmer? Like I said, I didn’t flip him off. Nope, no rude, childish gestures from me. No way. As he passed behind me, I switched on the salt spreader.

    I drove away laughing a cruel, cold laugh as I flipped Earl off , instead.

    "THAT SOMEWHERE YOU’LL SEE HER AGAIN AAAAAND AGAIN…"

    Nothing personal, of course, but here’s hoping I don’t see you in the next storm.