It’s been snowing increasingly heavily since early Sunday morning here in Mount Tremper In the northwestern part of Ulster County where the forecasters have been predicting the most snowfall. It has been eerily quiet on Wittenberg Road now that non-essential travel has been banned by governmental edict, so I just made a pact with the devil, should he exist.
Satan, I said, I propose a deal with you. If you leave the power on until the end of the Broncos-Patriots game on TV late this afternoon, I won’t complain about missing the Seahawks-Rams game that will follow it.
Out here in the Town of Shandaken, you see, we get our electricity from New York State Electric & Gas, not Central Hudson. We’re literally at the end of a power line that stretches eastward from the Rochester area in the center of the state. We go down if anywhere on the main line goes down.
At eleven o’clock a town plow makes its first run down the local road across from the house, no sign of the county plow yet.
The football that I hope to see and the storm which we are experiencing have something in common. Both bring us significant activities whose outcome is unpredictable. That uncertainty entrances us, makes us feel more alive.
Professional football is a brutal activity, with injuries, many of them season-endingly serious, every few plays. The announcer often wishes the injured player well before cutting to the first advertisement. Upon return from the ads, continuity is restored by an image of the player sitting towel-covered on the bench between teammates or entering the injury tent.
Cruelty fascinates. It fills the arenas.
Recovery is secondary.
Is that any way to live?
It’s noon now. Today’s snowstorm is not like the fluffy stuff that’s recently been slowly parachuting down from the heavens upon us here in Mount Tremper. It’s lacking a sense of whimsy: heavier, icier, accumulating more rapidly.
Join the family! 
