Like old rockers, big hair, and platform shoes, snowstorms don't get better with age
Esther Riegel is done with it. For good. This time. Really. For good.
“I can’t take the snow anymore,” said the 66-year-old Tabernacle resident, ranting about the latest storm a few days before it hit. “The cold, cleaning it off my car, how it keeps you stuck in your house. What are they saying this time, six, maybe eight inches for us? Worse if you’re at the shore.
“I’m too old to be shoveling it anymore, not with my bad hip. I got no kids, and you can’t find a kid knocking at your door with a shovel to do it for a couple bucks. Sometimes, you’re just stuck.”
Riegel shook her head in regret.
“I told my sister when we moved back up here it was a mistake,” she said. “We gotta go back to Florida.”
More: Coastal storm could bring major snowfall but how much? That's still up in the air
The years roll on. Thirty becomes 60 in a blink. Youth turns to gray. Life’s gas gauge tilts toward empty. Snowstorms become a chore. A change of mailbox can eliminate Mother Nature’s frosty annoyance.
Riegel echoed several friends from my hometown who trashed their coats and shovels in favor of warmer climes. South Carolina, Southern California, Arizona, Florida. A childhood friend moved from northeastern Pennsylvania to Alabama years ago, then most recently to Florida. When we got blasted with a foot of snow one year, he texted a photo of himself holding a 12-inch ruler upright in his sunshine-splashed yard to show how much snow he didn’t get.
Sick of the wait: Not in a roundabout way: Repeated prison delays for rogue ex-cop Nucera unacceptable
Anti-vax selfishness: 'You do you, and I'll do me' anti-vaccine mantra ultimate in selfishness
Kids' gift to Santa: 'It was the kids that got me through': Santa helper credits children during time of grief
My brother moved to Florida’s Gulf Coast more than six years ago. I tell him we’re getting six inches of snow up here. Six, huh, he says. Then he tells me he just bought a new 6-iron he uses every Saturday morning, January to December. Thanks, bro. He lives about a wedge shot from the beach. I hope the sand he visits most regularly is just off the green.
I understand Riegel’s pain. Adult snow is not child snow. Like an aging rocker who’s seen better days, it may look the same but isn’t. Those glorious days of sledding down snow-packed hills on streets in my hometown with so many neighborhood kids are a memory. I wonder what happened to my Flexible Flyer sled and red rubber boots. Today, when I learn we’re about to get pounded by snow, I cringe, as I think about having to shovel the driveway and clean off my car and scrape the icy crust off the windows while fighting the biting wind. Winter and snow have not aged well for Riegel and me. Snow is disco music, Members’ Only jackets, and platform shoes. It’s big hair and mullets. Better then than today.
I saw a recent story on the US News & World Report website about folks and relocating in America. A survey released by United Van Lines ranked the states with the highest outbound percentages. First on the list for the fourth consecutive year: New Jersey. Most folks moved South. The reasons ranged from the pandemic --- which I found curious since the infection rates in the South are highest in the nation --- to better employment opportunities. Riegel would add another reason.
“We grew up here, then moved to Florida when we were in our 40s,” Riegel said. “Why we decided to come back a few years ago, I can’t explain it. We missed our friends, and some family is still here. But so is the snow.”
I saw one website that bowled me over like an avalanche, speaking of snow. At storagefront.com, the story headline read: 10 Places to Move if You Hate Winter. The introductory paragraph noted that if you hate winter, move to a place where winter never shows up.
Who woulda thunk?
Phil Gianficaro, a columnist for the USA TODAY Network, can be reached at 215-345-3078, pgianficaro@theintell.com, and @philgianficaro on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Burlington County Times: Tired of snow, New Jersey woman regrets returning from South
