a few more years shall roll

It’s been a while. The snowstorm was delightful. I had a great time introducing michaela and cameron to my snowy Philadelphia streets and season one of arrested development. It was fun to be snowed in with company! The quietness that comes with a heavy snowfall is delightful, and even digging out my car the next day was pretty fun.

There was an incident while I was digging my car out that made me laugh. The street is narrow and one way (as many streets in Philadelphia). It was not impassable, but it was no fun to drive on. a woman who was clearly uncomfortable driving in the snow was traveling at a reasonably slow pace down the street, when an emergency vehicle came down the wrong way on the street (now, there was no need to go the wrong way past a certain point on that street since there is an easy turn to get back to the main road). An impasse. I am aware that emergency vehicles are permitted to go through red lights, etc when their lights are on, but this vehicle’s lights were not flashing nor was there an audible siren.

The driver of the emergency vehicle was the rudest man ever. He not only cursed up a storm at this poor frightened woman (who, I remind you, was driving the correct way down the street where there was no pull off option), but he tried to get bystanders involved at yelling at her too. Thankfully, he was unsuccessful. She would have had to back out about 200ft to get out of the street, while he could have backed up 10 feet and turned to go the proper direction. He argued with her for a full 25 minutes, and then had the audacity to say to a bystander who tried to calm him down that he had a patient in the back so he could get upset. If he were really that concerned with the patient’s welfare, he could have backed out easily.

How often do I do the same thing? So convinced of my own way of thinking, I refuse to make even the smallest correction in my path. I push forward, forcing others out of my way, claiming someone else’s best interest is at stake, when it’s really my own stubbornness, my own interest. I wonder sometimes if I’ve grown at all from the days when my dad used to imitate me by saying, “I’m Chris. I’m right and you’re wrong!” I’m a quiet person. I don’t yell. I rarely appear angry. No one who saw the driver and who knows me would consider us similar. But I know myself. And I’m ever the more grateful for the blood that washes me whiter than the snow.

PS. The front gutter on my house fell off yesterday. Too full of ice, apparently.