Word: snow
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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After reading about Rudd W. Coffey's homeless exploits, I ran right out and borrowed a wheelchair from University Health Services and sat in it for about two hours. It was a demeaning experience. First of all, it's almost impossible to get around in all this snow and people wouldn't help me; they looked right through me as if I weren't there. Plus, it's impossible to eat lunch at Quincy House--too many stairs. I had to get out and walk up them. I learned from the humiliation I had to go through, the loss...
...These are the times that try men's souls." Four snowfalls in over a week would be trying anywhere, but nowhere more so than in Cambridge, Mass. Snow here is especially difficult, due to the cavalier disregard with which it is treated by the authorities of our stalwart burgh. I mean, of course, the fact that it simply isn't plowed here. It seems that here they leave snow clearance to the melting action of the tire pressure of those unfortunates still driving on the treacherous by-ways, so that the streets look like Pompeii with its well-preserved wagon...
...mystery. Well, perhaps "no services" is a bit of exaggeration. Cambridge is at least generous in providing Commissions on Animal Rights, Declarations of Nuclear Free Zone Status, replanting cermonies for Liberty Trees, and Domestic Partner Benefits (even for those, presumably, whose job it is to not plow the snow...
...Snow here is sort of like applesauce; it starts to brown shortly after being exposed to the air. In the case of applesauce, home ec teachers assure us, harmless enzymes are responsible for the discoloration. In the case of Cambridge, the browning results from the ubiquitous filth settling from exhaust pipes and copious dormitory fireplaces. Think of the snow as a facsimile of your lungs--and start worrying...
This browning is nowhere more noticeable than on the sidewalks, which have quickly come to resemble treacherous snowbound crevices, paved with slush. The snow gives rise to novel questions of etiquette. If the slushway is wide enough for only one, should you wait for the pedestrian 50 yards up ahead coming in the opposite direction to complete his journey before yourself embarking? Or should you choose to ignore him, and halfway along engage in an awkward Snow Dance--strangers in the snow, exchanging footing...