By Tim Marren<br><a href="mailto:tim.marren@lockportjournal.com">E-mail Tim</a>
It’s December. It’s Western New York. It should be cold and it should snow.
End of story.
But ... it’s not the end of the story, otherwise this would be a pretty short and boring column. (It may still end up long and boring, but stick with me here).
Seriously, though, can we get over the fact that it was cold this past week and snowed a few inches in parts of Western New York?
Two things happen every year: 1. It gets cold. 2. People complain about it.
If you wanted to throw in a third thing that happens: People complain when the national media likens freezing cold to Buffalo. And that’s it.
People started fearing the “great storm” around Tuesday. Teachers and students were crossing their fingers with hope of a snow day. TV news people were hyping the pending snow pounding, leading every newscast with the forecast.
It was all the talk.
Then the snow came, and the real weather “story” ended up being the wind, more than the white stuff.
Regardless of the snow or wind or frigid temperatures, the real story would have been if it weren’t cold for the first week of December. It wasn’t freezing or there wasn’t snow, wouldn’t that be newsworthy?
It’s an odd thing in these parts where we obsess over the weather. Everyone turns into a junior meteorologist. Everyone thinks they know where the storm is coming from or where it will hit next.
These water cooler meteorologists have the amount of snowfall predicted and what hour it’s all coming. When faced with another opinion, they always stick with their weather information as if it’s gospel. Maybe it’s just two different news sources.
And then — then — once this weather hits (if it even does hit and in the fashion we all fear), we’re all in the dumps and complaining about the great inconvenience of being cold or having to shovel.
But, if the national media comes to town and says “look at this snow in East Aurora” we get all bent out of shape. I don’t get it. We either need to embrace the fact that it gets cold and snowy here in December and people will point as us because of that, or you move somewhere else where the people don’t have an image complex.
In 1817, Benjamin Franklin made famous the phrase: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
In 2009, Tim Marren said: “In this Western New York nothing can be said to be certain, except snow and ice and lots of it right around December. Oh, and chicken wings. Those are certain too.”
Bundle up and get used to it. It’s only December.
Tim Marren is the managing editor of the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal. Contact him at Tim.Marren@
lockportjournal.com or 439-9222.
