Does Your Snowman Have Sunblock?

March 1996

[This installment was written after an extremely bad east coast winter that seemed to see-saw with spring weather for the entire month, making every new day a guessing game.]

Does anybody out there remember a time when we actually had seasons? I don't think I imagined it; I'm fairly certain there was a time I could be sure we were done with snow for the year. We used to be able to tell what sort of weather to expect by checking our calendars, determining what month it was, and deciding whether or not to put away the parkas. That, of course, was before Mother Nature decided to play Climate Roulette with the Jet Stream. ("Ah! Number 27! Ninety degrees and humid! That'll do wonders to the ice storm I dropped on them yesterday.")

The last few years have hit us with some of the most extreme weather I've ever experienced, and it just gets stranger each year. Just imagine it a few years from now: "Yes, son, I can remember it like it was yesterday. Back in the early 1990s, folks could still rely on the order of the seasons. School children would cut out paper snowflakes in December, golfers could drive their carts outside without chains on the tires, and snowmen wouldn't boil away the morning after they were made."

This hemisphere has experienced a year of record-breaking snowstorms, earthquakes, droughts, heavy rains, floods, and hurricanes, sometimes occurring one right after another. Just how far away we are from swarms of locusts and raining frogs is anyone's guess. Here in the northeast U.S., two heavy snows that knocked down trees and telephone poles were sandwiched between two weeks of seventy-degree sunshine. Apparently, someone's changed the old adage to "March comes in like a lion, changes into Godzilla, and then goes out like a lamb."

And to think, there are actually some corporate types out there that will publically claim with a straight face that humans and our industries have no detrimental affect on the environment. Weather patterns that change almost as often as Michael Jackson changes faces is a fair indicator that we do. Perhaps this is Ma Earth's way of sending us humans the message, "Y'know, folks, you're getting kinda heavy. You mind riding somewhere else?" Maybe we've worn out our welcome here and we're being hinted to it's time to go. Sort of like putting on the Yoko Ono albums when your party guests have stayed too late.

Let's hope nature has decided to go back on schedule soon, and that if we have somehow angered the Mighty Weather Gods out there, that we may get back in their good graces. Until then, I'm keeping my parka out of the attic, and keeping watch out my window for frogs.

LEGAL STUFF: All content copyright © 1996-2006 Daniel O'Leary. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication, publication, or distribution.

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He has previously written online editorials to NJ-shout.com (RIP), Great Society.org, and Songsource.com, among others. He has also been featured in ShoreGuide and AbsoluteWrite.com.

Dan is a current member of the NetWits humorist's collective.

Since his early twenties, Dan's writings have also been prominently featured on the refrigerator in his parents' home. "Sure, they make no sense," Mrs. O'Leary comments, "but we're proud of him -- no matter what everyone else says."