Still and Clear

We are still digging out here on the mountain top in the wake of the President's Weekend Storm which dumped 53" on us since Saturday night. 

We are not surprised by this.  Actually, we were due for one.  But I cancelled services yesterday for the first time in ten years here.  Couldn't have gotten in anyway.  The front door of the church was sealed shut with two feet of snow.  Spent the day instead taking food out to the State Police Barrack where I am Chaplain.  Those guys were working their butts off and didn't have the time to get provisions.  The rest of the day was spent checking on shut-ins and running the snow-blower.  Cleared out the parking lot here at the house and helped dig out neighbors' cars which were mere lumps in the snow with antennas sticking out.  Had to do it all over again today.

I ran out to the Barrack today with more food.  The Barrack Commander had been there thirty-six hours when I arrived.  He said by 10 last night, they were all getting pretty punchy and just sat around laughing...hard...said it was a great commentary on just how out of control we really are.  We think we have all this technology and heavy equipment and then nature takes over, everything stops, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.  Except laugh.  There's a sermon in that one.

Probably the best commentary on the storm came from last night's Duty Officer who fielded a call from a headquarters higher-up down near Baltimore.  Granted, they got nailed pretty hard there, too.  But as with all bureaucracies, the Big Guys don't seem to have a clue about what's going on in the trenches.   The D.O. answers the phone and here's this Big Wig on the other end,

"How's it going out there?"

(We'd had about 4 feet by this time, roads were impassable, the plows couldn't keep up and there'd just been a 9 car fender bender which shut down the interstate.  And we hadn't seen the worst of it yet.)

Without missing a beat the D.O. answered,

"Still and clear, sir."

"Still and clear?  Sargeant, don't you know we've got a major emergency going on?  What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"Still comin' down and clear up to my ass....sir."

That about says it all.  I'll write more after I'm dug out.

Peace.

7:02:28 PM
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