It’s been a trying couple of weeks for New England, but fortunately this is the home of some hardy folks – folks who sneer at bomb cyclones, let alone a couple of nor’easters. The residents of the cradle of the Revolution are not afraid of back-to-back storms dropping two feet of snow.
We will lace up our Sorel and Bean boots, don our Bruins hats and Patriots gloves (with a wistful, wishful glance at the stored Sox cap), put on our NorthFaces and our parkas. We will walk our dogs in gale force winds. We will shovel out our cars, snowblow our sidewalks and lay down way too much rock salt. We will dig out fire hydrants and clear storm drains, because this too shall pass, and when it does it’s going to be very wet.
Because our frozen granite exteriors shield warm and generous hearts, we will buy a cup of coffee for the homeless men and women in Downtown Crossing (Dunks, of course). We will snowblow our neighbors’ sidewalks as well as our own. We will wait, albeit impatiently, for our fellows to navigate the tiny paths cleared at all the crosswalks. We will be open-hearted and open-handed. And all the while we will complain – bitterly – about the weather, the T, the traffic and anything else we can think of, because it is our God-given right as New Englanders to do so.
Because the streets of Boston are little more than cow paths with delusions of grandeur, populated at the best of times by vehicles of all shapes and sizes driven by humans who think they are much better drivers than they are, we will entrust our safety to the fine people of the MBTA. Fighting the weather, accommodating employees “out sick,” accommodating aging equipment and infrastructure, they will do their best to get us where we need to be on time and in one piece – with very little thanks or credit.
We will slog through the slushy city streets and fight through the wind tunnels, jaywalking most of the way. A lucky few among us will put on slippers and sweatpants and crack open laptops on the kitchen table while the kids run amok on their third snow day in a row.
We will, to paraphrase a man who thinks it’s a good idea to cut the sleeves off all of his sweatshirts in the dead of winter, “do our jobs.”
Whether you got here by birth or blood, by transplantation or generation, by marriage or schooling or employment, you are a New Englander. From the backwoods of Maine to pastoral suburban Connecticut (except Fairfield County, those guys have identity issues), we are New Englanders.
By the time you read this editorial, some of last week’s snow will have melted and another nor’easter will potentially be on the horizon. But that’s March in Massachusetts. Winter truly is waning and spring really is coming (eventually). Until then, we are New Englanders, and we endure.
