It’s a Snow Day!

Note: Since this was published, as an Inside Column by the South County Gazette of Three Oaks, Michigan, on January 20, 2007, the area has been hit with much more snow! The "blanket" is easily two feet thick, with even deeper drifts. My editor has "blamed" this on my column.

I keep a list of column ideas--politics, health, environment--object lessons and observations I think could interest others, make them think, make them feel, remind them what life is about. But as I sat down to write this column, there was nothing on the list that could do any of that more than the view outside my window. At least six inches of snow coats tree branches, fence posts, lawns and rooftops. Small shrubs and utility lines sag under its weight, and the whole world looks light and bright--even without the sun.

Snow is often described in terms of “a blanket” of “sparkling crystals”--an apt description, yet somehow inadequate to capture its purity, its thoroughness and its egality, its way of covering absolutely everything, without discrimination, in thick dazzling white.

While we may complain about it, snow is important, especially to southwest Michigan. It is what allows the area to produce the wonderful fruit we relish in summer. Snow, and cold, kills bugs and diseases, and makes pesky raccoons hibernate. It is part of the great biological clock. Without it daffodils and cherry blossoms fall out of sync.

Snow refreshes and nourishes the environment, and as well, the soul. It is a great equalizer, making everyone have to get off their proverbial treadmills to dig out their mittens and scarves, shovel their their driveways and sweep their sidewalks. It makes people cooperate, as they help each other out of ditches, or drifts. For a brief time we are distracted from life’s pettinesses, and reminded of its importance.

All the machinations of man cannot stop snow from falling--that’s real power. It humbles “horsepower.”

Of course there are the lucky few who get to go out and play in the frosty fluff. Snow angels and snowmen spring up across the landscape. People head for the hills with sleds and skis. Snowmobiles race across the open spaces. This is as it should be--a hearty celebration of nature’s spontaneous gift.

Many years ago, living in southern California, I read an editorial written by a Chicagoan who found himself the manager of a local fast food restaurant. He incredulously proclaimed that “only in California!” would “surf’s up” be a legitimate excuse to not come to work. Dude! What surfers understand is that a good wave, like a good snow, only comes along once in a rare moment--and it should be respected, revered, appreciated and enjoyed. The burgers--and all the other “busy-ness” of human endeavor--can wait.

The Accidental President.

In the weeks since Gerald Ford died, I’ve learned a lot about him I did not know. Ford at ninety three was, until now, our oldest living president, and held degrees from the University of Michigan and Yale. He was an athlete and a congressman for 25 years. I think the thing that impresses me the most is that he declined professional football offers to attend Law School. He set aside something potentially gratifying for something truly important He spent his career in Congress working hard, getting things done, and making friends along the way, according to those who worked beside him and are speaking out about it now.

I was sixteen when Nixon resigned amid financial scandal, antiwar demonstrations, and Watergate. Children lack context--the framework, a title. And so, what I remember from my early years are events--the assassinations of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, his brother, Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. I remember Kent State; I remember Mi Lai. I remember the Black Panthers and the Hell’s Angels. Viet Nam surrounded and divided the nation, threatening to simultaneously suffocate and explode it.

Into this tinder box fell Gerald R. Ford, the “accidental” president who found himself appointed to replace vice president Spiro Agnew, and then became president when Nixon left the office. “Comfortable in his skin,” as someone described him, Ford took hold of the rudder and steered the nation clear of the rocks--and he made it look easy.

In responding to the former president’s death, the current president made note of Ford’s “integrity,” and called him “healing.” Others have spoken of his “openness.” He certainly doesn’t seem to have taken himself too seriously, and yet could get down to real serious business when necessary. He did the nation true service--and deserves to be commended for it.

As I watch the televised images of people streaming past the coffin of Gerald Ford, in California, in Washington, D.C., and in Grand Rapids, and as I read about what is happening in the world around me, in New Orleans, in Darfur, and in Iraq, I can’t help wondering if we couldn’t use another Gerald Rudolph Ford right about now. I'm wondering too just who that “accidental” president might be.

--a version of this essay was previously published in The South County Gazette.