Mar. 19, 2003 - 18:06 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

To Drop

It is hard to think about the war situation today. 8 PM I guess is the deadline. Many of us are praying for the welfare of our troops overseas. And many of us think that war will begin.

Most of us have someone near and dear to us who are near death right now, here at home. Or some one ailing and needing help. Just the few people I know on the net are coping with difficulties unimaginable.

It irks me no end that I am so damn old, feeble and deaf - - useless to the max. Alone I can accomplish nothing, but I could if able join with some one, some group be able to help, somewhere.

I guess the best I can do right now is to avoid sinking into the hell pit of depression. 'Twould be easy to do, but damfoolish of course.

We were able today to hook up to the antenna on the apartment roof. We didn't know that there was an outlet in our apartment that we could attach to. So we stand at no mail, no newspaper and just local station TV.

Still it snows, it slacked off awhile this afternoon but now it is back at it. Heather and I very cautiously edged into the artery which is somewhat open here by our apartment complex and went to the supermarket to see if we could get a newspaper there, heh, all we could find there was yesterday's paper, so I guess even the retail outlets didn't get paper delivery today. I saw the area where the street-side newspaper box is at our complex buried under a mountain of snow.

I think this snow is much worse than the Christmas Eve snow of 1982. That snow was light, windblown into deep drifts but could be handled as the equipment got to it. This one is as deep or deeper and wet, wet, wet. We can look out our apartment window and see the evergreen branches loaded with snow at the point of breaking. That I have seldom seen.

The people who made it into work today will probably be able to make it home, albeit slowly this afternoon. Getting to work tomorrow morning is quite a different matter I think. It will freeze soon tonight and deeply. People will have a heck of a time getting out of their neighborhoods to an artery that has been cleared and then face ice and rutted clumps of icy snow. The cars parked in the outdoor parking area here at our apartment complex have a very heavy layer of snow on top and drifts boxing them in tight. The maintenance crew here could only get the street open and the backs of cars are drifted in too.

There are 25,000 people in the area without power and many folks will be snowed in for days. I pray they have enough heat and food. Those of the 25,000 whose heat is governed by electricity are in some kind of deep doo-doo. Reminds me of the folks in North Carolina who had such bad ice storms this winter.

Denver International Airport closed when they could not keep the runways open, there are 60 some aircraft on the ground and the terminal is loaded with stranded passengers. Saw on TV some of the passengers who had been given blankets and pads of some sort laying their bedding for the night out on the floor. For a time today the main area of the terminal was closed off to passengers as one of the big canopies had a tear and collapse was feared. This created a problem for folks as this is where the eating places are.

So here in our town tonight it is messy. But in our town and our nation we stand dreading the beginning of the war in Iraq. Waiting for the First Shoe To Drop . . . . . . .

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