sNOLA in effect

Remember that anything can be

Watching snow come down is something I’ve grown up with. I have memories of snowball fights and sledding at a local golf course and lacing up my boots before I could go outside. Life in the Midwest offers all of the seasons, and Winter has long been my least favorite of all. But I also accept it as a necessary waystation between the holidays and springtime. What other choice is there?

It turns out that people living in the South are able to largely bypass snow and ice. Not to say that they never occur there, but they aren’t very common. People living there don’t own snow shovels or have a supply of rock salt handy, I would imagine. Why would they need to?

So when a snowy day comes to New Orleans—the type of a day that hasn’t been seen there since 1895—it’s something worth commenting on. Over the past four years, ever since winter storm Uri back in early 2021, I’ve visited New Orleans a number of times, and have developed quite a fondness for the city. Although I could never live there, because I enjoy being a tourist too much to ever give that up, I’m always looking forward to my next visit there.

So as the snow was falling throughout the day in the French Quarter, I found a webcam on Bourbon Street and marvelled at a site I haven’t seen before, and might not ever see again. I suspect that many of the people walking around there had the same reaction, too. Everyone was taking pictures with their phones, capturing the almost unimaginable images of snow falling in a city where palm trees predominate. I would have done the same thing if I were there today, but saving a few screenshots via a snipping tool would have to do, instead.

Before I left for work this morning, and for reasons I don’t quite understand, my attention was drawn to a volume of poems by Shel Silverstein called “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” I paged through it, looking for things that were amusing and—with Silverstein’s work—they aren’t very hard to find. The last poem I read, which I can legitimately say could be the only poem that I have committed to memory, is also one of my favorites, “Listen to the Mustn’ts”

Listen to the MUSTN’TS, Child
Listen to the DON’TS,
Listen to the SHOULDN’TS,
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS.
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me.
Anything can happen, Child
ANYTHING can be.

And if ten inches of snow falling in New Orleans won’t prove the correctness of this poem, I’m not sure what other evidence is required.