it is winter in Iowa. As I write this, we have about 15 inches on the ground, 2 from Monday and 13 from yesterday. That may be low, hard to tell. Plus, it is still coming down. Yesterday it looked like it was raining. They predicted it could come at 1 to 2 inches per hour, I'm guessing that is what it was, if not more. I hadn't seen it snow that hard in a long time. As I was shoveling today, I was working around my mailbox and wondered, is the postal service hanging on to that motto, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." I read it's not an official motto, but you use to hear it all the time, at least I did when I was a kid. I have not received my mail on numerous occasions and I'm guessing today will be one of them. I understand, you just might want to drop the "snow" part. When I use to deliver newspapers, no excuse, you delivered no matter what or you got docked for every paper and had to listen to pissed off customers, who by the way weren't going to work because the weather was so bad, buttheads. We had snow a few years back, that had been plowed by the street plow, and made it so our mail person couldn't lean out and deliver our mail. They would have to get out of the truck, and that wasn't happening, so we got a note in our mailbox that we would no longer get mail until the situation was fixed. This note, as I said, was in my mailbox, so they had to get out of the truck to put the note in, but God forbid they ever did it again. Nice customer service, but like I always say, if there is a monopoly on something, they don't feel the pressure to provide good service. Try arguing with the local energy or water company, if you only have one "choice" and see how much they care. So I'm not holding my breath on mail today, but I saw something else the other day that I never saw when I was a kid. I was headed to work about 6:30 the other morning, and it was brisk, but I wouldn't say cold. Marcy would say it was freezing, but I'll say it was in the 20's. nice. As I passed a school bus stop, there were cars lined up, full of kids, waiting for the bus. When I was a kid, you stood out there, "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these kids from the swift ride to their appointed school". I'm pretty sure if I asked my mom to sit in the car while I stayed warm to wait for the bus, should would have laughed in my face. To be honest, I never would have asked, it never would have occurred to me. I guess the times, they are a changing. I'm guessing there aren't as many latchkey kids these days, but I could be way wrong on that one. In Iowa they have after school programs for kids, they call it kidswest. When I was a kid, the after school program was playing with my friends and trying to stay out of trouble so you didn't get grounded. Man I got grounded a lot.
Question. When bad weather is coming, people stop at the store to pick up a few things. Makes sense, but my question is, why stock up like the city will be shut down for a month? This isn't a nuclear disaster, the stores will be open soon, if they ever close. You might not be able to drive there, but I'm guessing that is for a day, two tops. Most roads are not even noticeable today, looks like the arctic circle out there, but I can tell you with confidence, they will be open at some point tomorrow. So you went to the store and bought 25 cans of cream corn, fine, but why did you need to buy 10 gallons of water? I'm pretty sure the water system will be fine, even with a bunch of snow. It gets a heck of a lot colder in Iowa than it is today, so I don't think the whole system will freeze up. I just don't get people.
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