In spite of the best intentions of Fear Mongers Anonymous, we’ve had some major storms in the new year and have come through them with relatively minor problems.
There are, of course, the stingy drivers who believe that by not turning on their headlights they save gas. They often also indulge in the belief that the wind will sweep the top of their car of snow. This is sort of like the bald guy with a comb-over.
Snow banks are higher. Payloaders and dump trucks are hauling away the piles and finding open areas to dump the used snow. Surprisingly, there is no effort made to find a use for used snow. In cities like Boston and Portland, there are dump sites with a machine that will melt the tons of snow and send the water to the treatment plant. At the treatment plant, the liquid snow will be filtered, cleaned and returned to the environment to become ice cubes in the delicious bourbon on the rocks.
There must be a market for used snow. Why the city does not provide research funds for this resource is a mystery.
Given the hysteria generated down South, they are jealous of our white stuff. We have lots of trucks that travel from our stores south to warehouses in other places. Could we fill these trucks with used snow and send it to poor, unfortunate communities who need to experience snow? This would provide added income for the heroic truckers who keep us supplied in things we could do without while allowing us to reap the benefits of sharing.
Just think, our cousins who fled the snow could regale their neighbors of the horrors of walking through 15-foot drifts in the dark of night to go to school, or of young lovers stuck in a snowbank that ate their Chevy Nova and were not found until spring.
We could provide so much from used snow. And the money raised would be well spent on buying plane tickets to warmer climes for the rest of us. Be nice to the environment and recycle your snow.
Orpheus Allison is a photojournalist living in The County who graduated from UMPI and earned a master of liberal arts degree from the University of North Carolina. He began his journalism career at WAGM television, later working in many different areas of the US. After 20 years of television he changed careers and taught in China and Korea.
