Bob Uecker was a second string catcher in the major leagues for several years. More recently, he is better known to younger fans as the radio voice of the Milwaukee Brewers. He was once asked how he caught knuckleball pitchers. For those who may not know, the knuckleball is a trick pitch that does strange things on the way to the batter.
Uecker’s advice for young catchers was to watch it go past you, wait until it stops, then go pick it up.
That’s the philosophy I’ve adopted for this seemingly never-ending snowfall. Wait until it stops, then shovel if you have to. As we were coping with the latest winter blast, I was amazed at the people who seemed to think it was their duty to shovel their driveways and sidewalks, even as the snow continued to fall!
Thankfully, city crews, as well as county and state road crews, haven’t adopted my knuckleball philosophy. Tuesday morning, as I was still contemplating which brush I would use to knock the snow off the van, I could see numerous city dump trucks drive by, hauling snow, plowing snow off the street, etc. Don’t forget that while most of us are snug in our beds, our city crew is attempting to clear our city streets so that we can get to work or wherever we need to be the next morning.
One nice feature of the business I’m in is the ability to work from home, if necessary. As long as the we have electricity, I can post stories on this site from home. I took advantage of this just once so far this year, when we had that ice storm earlier. I seriously considered staying home Tuesday, but I thought of all the folks who were traveling a lot further than I was to get to my job and decided to tough it out.
My decision was confirmed when I got out on the streets. I saw at least one downtown merchant who came in from the farm to open her store. I saw a FedEx truck making local deliveries. I saw one of the most inspirational people I know who said she has walked every day for over 40 years out making her daily route on foot.
I may not stay the entire day, but I thought it was important to come into the office and check to see if any cancellations needed to be posted. Our scheduled trip to Des Moines on Wednesday to make a presentation to the Community Attraction and Tourism Committee for a grant for downtown redevelopment was canceled. As I write this, I am waiting on several other scheduled events for the next couple of days and will post any changes as needed.
Earlier I made a baseball reference. A Quad-Cities friend whose father played minor league baseball many years ago posted a comment on Facebook saying that her favorite phrase this time of the year is “pitchers and catchers report.”
In less than two weeks, pro baseball will awaken from a long winter’s nap and players will begin getting into playing shape in Arizona and Florida. By the first part of March, televised preseason games will remind us that the sun and warmth will return eventually.
It seems inevitable that whenever we get slapped by another winter blast, the skeptics snicker at former Vice President Al Gore’s campaign against global warming. The Tea Partiers, Fox News and Obama-is-foreign-born fans seem to come out of the woodwork, sneering, “Where’s the global warming?”
I’m certainly no scientist, but I wonder if these people are missing the point. Even the folks who worship at the altar of Glen Beck would agree that we’ve had some strange weather in recent years. Just maybe the effects of global warming don’t mean we will soon be experiencing sunny skies and 80 degree temperatures in January.
The whole point to the global warming facts are that for many years man has been messing with the atmosphere and if we don’t change, our weather will continue to go haywire, with more extreme heat and yes, maybe extreme cold and snow in the future.
That’s my collection of random thoughts for today. So curl up next to the fire, sip that hot chocolate and repeat over and over, “pitchers and catchers report.” You’ll warm up immediately!