I am really glad that the people who make decisions in the area where I live don’t do it for most of my life. This morning all the schools are closed, transportation solutions are shutting down and many seem to be battening down the hatches due to the weather.
The word on the radio is ‘freezing rain’ even though there isn’t any freezing going on. It is raining out, a bit, so they are at least a little bit half right.
Where I live we generally have mild winters compared to the rest of Canada, one of the reasons I live here, but over the past ten years we have had periods where Mr. Winter moved in pretty significantly at times. This shutting things down started out when the snow was really piling up and, due to limited snow removal equipment and budgets, the roads became very treacherous. I have seen a few storms that would even encourage Alberta and Ontario drivers to stay home.
As time has passed however, I see the excuses to shut down schools, etc. shifting from ‘severe weather conditions’ to ‘icy roads’ then to ‘snow on the roads’, and this year it seems that just the threat of a little snow is enough to do it. I thought people got tougher when they faced adversity. Maybe I am witnessing some de-evolution because now, since it is raining in the winter (like that is anything new in my part of Canada) they are shutting it down.
How bad is it? My grandson lives two blocks from his school. Since they closed the school and his father still has to get to work (he lives four blocks from work), I had to come down off my mountain, and it is steep, drive two kms to pick him up and then drive back up the steep hill that has two ninety-degree turns in it. Along the way I dropped a friend off at work. No problem, where are the adverse conditions that have the whole valley shut down? Me thinks they exist more in the minds of people who just don’t want to work (but who still get paid).
Worse, we have given our children one more lesson on how to let circumstances control you. Why can’t people just exercise a little common sense, restraint and develop some skills to deal with the snow rather than huddle inside their igloos?
In my opinion, we are simply turning into a world of wimps.