Growing up in the Greater Washington, DC Metropolitan Area, Northern Virginia division, I have seen my share of snow. Having lived in the frozen tundra of Southeastern Wisconsin, the Halfway-Between-Milwaukee-And-Chicago division for 9 months (the 9 months that took us right through the snowy season of late October through February), I have seen LOTS of snow.
But, I no longer live in the frozen tundra. I don't even live in DC. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. And nothing says Charlotte, NC quite like a snow storm.
Okay, nothing says Charlotte, NC like "NASCAR", but work with me a little.
Tomorrow, we are scheduled to get a whopping 1-2 inches of snow. That doesn't aggravate me. I like snow. I thought Wisconsin was awesome in the winter. What it means is that Charlotte will get national attention. There is nothing that the city of Charlotte loves quite like national attention. National attention is better still if it involves the forthcoming NASCAR Hall of Fame. But this kind of national attention is not welcome.
I saw this national attention while sipping some exceedingly bad coffee in the lobby of the Comfort Inn in San Jose, CA two weeks ago tomorrow. CNN was on the tube, and they were broadcasting live from Charlotte. The reporter was standing beside what looked like an overpass or road overlooking 485 and talking about the big, bad ice storm that had occurred in the night. He was scratching a patch off of a railing and saying something along the lines of, "all it took was this much ice to close the city down! " No wonder they hate Yankees in the South. All that was missing was for the reporter to talk about how superior they are in New York, Philadelphia, or, heaven help us, Boston.
Yes, that's right. Tomorrow Charlotte and all points in the south that are affected by the oncoming storm will be mocked on the national news: "Stupid southerners can't drive in the stuff." "What a bunch of wimps."
Yada,
yada,
yada.
I gained my first hatred of this attitude growing up in Northern VA, where every time it would snow, the reporters would head out to either Dulles or National (back before it was Reagan National) Airport to interview...you got it, the same goofballs that will be mocking us tomorrow.
Nothing is as annoying as someone with a Boston accent talking about how people "down he-ah" can't operate their "cahs" in the snow, and how New England is so much better because their kids go to school when there's a foot of snow on the ground and they even walk uphill both ways in it and anyone that can’t take it is obviously backwards and they’re so superior that they are going to move to the south as soon as possible to show these backwoods hicks just how to do things.
And so, they move south—trust me, Charlotte is a lot like DC: most people are from somewhere else, and usually from the north—and they then discover that it isn’t the people that can’t handle it. It’s an infrastructure thing. This will be the first snow in three years. You think an area that gets that much snow has hundreds of snow plows at its beck and call?
Now, Wisconsin had the tools. I lived in a town of 3000ish people (literally a village), and I swear they had 5-10 snow plows. Not only that, but before the first flake hit the ground, they were a-plowin’. And not just the main roads, either. No sir, this was a first rate snow removal machine, I’ll tell you what! But, you wanna know a secret? Lean closer and I’ll whisper it to you:
Those folks can’t get their tires to work on snow and ice any better than those of us that reside in the South.
See, one day, I was at work, and the snow came. And in Wisconsin, there is no such thing as a wimpy snow. In an hour they could have an inch or two. But I digress…we were house-sitting for my wife’s cousin, and I was even using their car. Then I started getting the comments: “If you need to get home, go ahead.” “Brad, you drive through snow before?” Even my lovely wife called with, “Be careful, please. The snow here is different than Virginia.” Grrrr.
Deciding it would be wise to hit the main roads, I headed straight to I-94. And guess what I saw? Cars in ditches. Cars spun the wrong way beside the road. Cars abandoned by drivers driven to madness by the mysterious white flakes falling from the sky. And what did the license plates say? Virginia? North Carolina, the "First in Flight"? Florida, the "Sunshine State"?
Nope. Wisconsin. But even more satisfying to me, Illinois, the "Land of Lincoln". Lots of Land of Lincoln-branded plates. Yes, the southerner in me gave a wry grin as I successfully made my way to a hot meal in a warm, cozy home.
So, before you start laughing at the smug CNN reporters tomorrow because "the people there just can't handle it," consider this post as a caution...pride cometh before the fall. And next time I'm in Boston, I won't brag about the fact that the roads we have above ground in Charlotte have yet to crush a single "cah".
Karl Barth must have been a great guy to agree with me...
