After the storm

And now I have lived through the second and third biggest snowstorms ever recorded in these parts, and I can safely say they were the biggest and second biggest in any of our lifetimes. When the snow stopped falling and the sun came out Monday afternoon (and the wind did not quit until well into the night), 33 inches of accumulation had been measured in Sturgeon Bay and 26 inches in Green Bay — I am located exactly between those fine cities. In recorded history only the Great Blizzard of 1888 left more snow in its wake.

If you have to endure a monster snowstorm, it may as well be a historic one. This way I can tell future young whippersnappers, “I remember back in ’26, the snow and the wind got so wild they had to pull the snowplows off the road.” Yep, it was that awful on Monday morning. By sunset, though, we could actually see the sun in the sky as it went down.

About 1,200 homes did lose power in the storm, but summer windstorms have taken the electricity from tens of thousands in the past, so most of us have much to be grateful for now that we’re through the storm and into cleanup mode.

As if perhaps to remind me not to be glib about reaching the other side, I did have a couple of sump pump issues that kept me busy Monday afternoon and evening and may or may not be solved — I’ll know more by dawn’s early light.

Clearly I needed a reminder that two and a half feet of snow and bitter cold can wreak havoc with our cleverly designed devices like homes and roads and such.

God has granted us a few days above freezing to start melting this mess, but not until Wednesday. One day with a high of 20 and two nights in single digits will be more in line with the Wisconsin tradition that winter rarely departs until after the first day of spring, and then some.

In the middle of the storm

So far the storm is everything they said it would be. I am so grateful to be living in an era where, in the middle of the storm and as long as the grid holds, I can sit in comfort and watch and participate in a worship service in progress 20 miles away.

I’m still safe and warm Sunday night. I have shoveled the stairs to the backyard four times for the sake of my dogs — at 5:30 a foot of snow had filled in the path I had cleared four hours earlier. It seems the snow has tapered off but will be on and off most of the night until it resumes for several hours not long before dawn.

I have only stepped out front once, to take this photo shortly after 8 a.m., 24 hours after I took the picture of Summer and the bare front yard. I’m planning a third photo Monday morning to share for Tuesday.

I’ve stayed in touch with Mary by phone and the rest of the world by Facebook. When Starlink was installed earlier this month and the panel on the roof was pointed at the sky, I asked the guy what I should do if we get 10 inches of snow. “It has a built-in heater,” he said. Sure enough there’s been no interruption of internet service, and apparently there won’t be as long as I have electricity.

What a miraculous world we live in. It seems the last frontier we have to conquer is humanity’s hatred for one another, and even there we make slow progress all the time.

“The heavens declare the glory of God.” We do usually get one horrific storm at the end of winter — and this one may turn out to be the most horrific of all — but then, experience tells me, we’ll be greeting daffodils within a couple of weeks. That thought helps me maintain calm as I listen to the angry wind and the wind chimes jangling in the dark.

Every so often a vehicle passes on the highway above this home. I pray for everyone out in the storm, for safe passage and eventual shelter. It will be a blessing to see the end of this, which they’ve already dubbed “this historic storm.”

Calm before the storm

Saturday morning was beautiful in our neighborhood as Summer and I went for our constitutional. The sun was beaming in the sky; it was chilly but not unbearable, the kind of late-winter chill that has a faint promise of spring in the air.

The red-winged blackbirds and cardinals serenaded us as we walked up the hill, and they seemed to be heralding the first day of spring a week from now.

If I’m to believe the meteorologists, 24 hours from now (or as you read this Sunday morning), we will be in the early hours of a snowpocalypse, and this beautiful sunny panorama will be replaced by two or even three feet of snow under gray skies by Monday morning. It’s an idyllic and even archetypal calm before the storm.

I thank the Creator of the universe for giving us a glimpse of the other side of the storm, for that is exactly what Saturday morning was. I imagine this might be what the morning before The Flood was like, and Noah was able to keep the peaceful image in his mind and heart as the waters rose and the ark began to float.

We had 30 inches of snow one April weekend back in 2018. At least this storm has the courtesy to swoop in while the calendar is still set to “winter.”

Conversation with the neighbors

“What am I doing here? Why am I doing this?” He had stopped in mid-thought to contemplate the meaning of his very existence. He felt he had to know the reason why he was put on this planet, as if he had to have a Reason. Could it be as simple as what he was told — to love God and to love his neighbor, understanding that everyone and anyone was his neighbor? No, it was not just that imperative, it was to share that imperative with his neighbors — to share it with everyone and anyone.

It seemed too simple — wouldn’t people get tired of his constant repetition? “Oh there’s the one-note wonder again, he’s such a one-trick pony. ‘And now for my next trick, another variation on “Love God and love your neighbor, and did I mention that everyone is a neighbor?”’ Boh-ring.”

“I want to love my neighbor,” said one neighbor, “but THOSE PEOPLE don’t want to be my neighbors.”

“Love them anyway,” he said.

“Easy for you to say,” said another neighbor, “but what about HIM? You can’t possibly mean to include —”

“Oh, yes, I do,” he said. “Even he, with all his annoying and alarming proclamations and habits, even he is my neighbor, and I must love him if this is going to work.”

“There’s the flaw in your logic — ‘if this is going to work’ — but it can’t work unless everyone buys into it,” another neighbor insisted.

“No, that’s not true, either,” he said. “It starts with me, doing unto others, and one at a time, we all will love one another eventually.”

“That will take forever, long past our lifetimes,” said another.

“It has been more than 2,000 years now,” he admitted. “Still, there is more love in the world than there was 100 years ago, so it’s slowly working.”

Several neighbors scoffed. “That’s pretty slow progress,” two or three said simultaneously.

“The one who said it first did not say the world would change all at once,” he said.

“Yes, he did,” countered one wag of a neighbor, “something about ‘in a twinkling of an eye,’ as I recall.”

“That’s something else,” he said. “In any case, I have the answer to my original question. This is what I’m here for.”

“What is?”

“To have this conversation. Over and over.”

“Aren’t you bored?” asked a neighbor, “or at least incredibly frustrated?”

“Not yet,” he said, smiling. “I kind of love it.”

Dooba pah pah poh

A lot of what I learned about music and songwriting came from studying Neil Sedaka’s songs during my obsession from ages 8 to 10. One observation was that many songs have an introduction that doesn’t repeat during the main body of the song (but might repeat at the end).

“Wo wo wo wo, yeah yeah yeah, hey little devil!”

“Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, happy birthday sweet sixteen!”

As I discovered more about old-time music (or, as I called it then, contemporary music), I saw that Neil Sedaka didn’t invent the song intro.

For example, “My love must be a kind of blind love,” etc., opens “I Only Have Eyes for You,” and I’ve found song intros on songs dating back to the 1920s, tunes like “Ain’t We Got Fun,” “Ramona” and “Stardust.”

In a world full of “Rama Lama Ding Dongs” and “Dip dip dip dip mum mum mum mum mums,” Sedaka did put his own spin on the song intro with the third hit in my obsession, “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.”

That song, of course, begins, “Come-a come-a down, doobie do down down,” and as far as I know, the incomprehensible song intro was born. (Or maybe it traces back to “Bomma bom bom, ma bomma bom bom, buh buh bomma bom bom a-danga dang dang, a dinga dang ding blue moon.”) Sedaka took it a step further by making the repeated “down doobie do” a part of the song’s background rhythm.

And for his next trick, he took incomprehensible to a new level with the opening of “Next Door To An Angel”:

“Dooba pah pah poh do-bop she down down, dooba pah pah poh do-bop she down down.”

(Tangent: Perhaps this musical trend kept evolving to its ultimate expression in “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”)

I have little more to add except that nonsense words were a part of early rock music’s charm. In the immortal words of Barry Mann, “When I say dip da dip da dip da dip, you know I mean it from the bottom of my boogity boogity boogity shoop.”

Maybe I dontwanna

“Maybe I’ll …”

I frequently will preface a statement with “Today, maybe I’ll …” Maybe I’ll clean this room. Maybe I’ll give Dejah, my ancient golden retriever, a good brushing. Maybe I’ll write that Great American Novel. Clearly what I really mean to say is, “This is what I really ought to do, but I don’t want to.” Or at least that’s the net result at the end of the day.

Usually when I “suck it up” and push through the dontwannas, it wasn’t as great a chore as I feared, and I feel better for getting it done. The ferocity of my resistance often amazes me. “This will only take a minute or two” or “This is an obligation you assumed” are not as powerful as motivators as “I don’t wanna!”

I know I like to say it’s important to stay in touch with your inner child, but this part of childhood is ridiculous.

Maybe I’ll start reminding my inner child that we did grow up, once upon a time.

Reasons for all of it

On Monday I posted my post on Facebook by quoting from the song “Smile” — “There’s always a reason to always choose joy.” Tuesday I wrote about my poem “Love anyway” and posted to Facebook, “There’s always a reason to always choose love.”

Now I realize there’s always a reason to choose all of the fruits of the Spirit — always choose peace, always choose patience, always choose kindness, and all the rest. That reason in the most selfish sense is that it’s good for us — if you live in joy, peace, gentleness, etc., you’re going to be healthier than if you wrap yourself in anger and fear and lash out at others.

But as the phrase implies, those traits are a natural product of living in the Spirit — they are the fruits of that life choice. When you’re with the Spirit, you can’t help but feel joy and love, and you are patient, and kind and gentle by nature.

Choose to live in the Spirit, and you are choosing all of the fruit. I have to say it’s a healthier way of life but often hard to maintain, especially as I scroll through social media and see all the hatred and distrust — but as I cling to the Spirit, the urge to respond in kind tends to melt away. There’s always a reason to always choose the Spirit.