SNOW Jesse Winchester

Jesse Winchester recorded this song in 1970. Winter was winter back in the last century. Listening to this song reminds me of New England and leaving behind the cold . If only I could leave. Anywhere south as long as it isn't New Jersey.

2017 February

A snow day. February 2017. Cold with a storm at large. Snow coming and it dropped a load on Fort Greene.

Eight inches and more of the heavy stuff.

January 12 2025 - Clinton Hill

Sunday
January
I think feel snow.
Or a nasty cold rain coming
Outside
I haven't stepped outside in two days
Too cold outdoors
But I might go now
I do love the snow
After all
I'm from New England
I have snow gear___ serious snow gear___

Journal Entry - January 2, 1978

Star-crossed day.

A drunk retching into the snow on 2nd Avenue, obviously in the throes of alcoholic poisoning.

Happy New Years.

Enough on him.

First Snow In New York City 2024

No snow
In New York City.
Three years.
Not cold neither.
Yesterday
Snow.
Two inches
Cold.
Not Omaha cold -40.
20 degrees Fahrenheit cold.
And sunny.

The wind cruel cold
Fort Greene Park.
Two inches of snow trampled by thousands and thousands of feets.
Each step immortal in the cold.
Steps atop steps
Like layers of ruins atop Troy.

The slope down from the Monument
Snow flattened by children's sleds.
Hundreds of sleds
Thousands of shouts of glee.
This morning
Nothing but me and the sun and the snow
And the cold.
Near Arctic cold.

Remember
Blackstrap Hill
Falmouth
Maine
1957
Five years old
With my brother, sister, and father.
No sun.
A gray sky.
None of us cold.
Inside our parkas not cold
Children from Maine are never cold
Until the sun goes down.

We trudge through knee-deep snow.
Dragging a toboggan and a sled.
The top of Blackstrap
I stand on the toboggan.
It slides slowly over the snow.
I put out my arms
For balance.
Picking up speed.
My father shouts,
"Jump."
I don't see why.

More speed
I fly
Faster and faster
Children in my path
I can't stop
I can't fall
I only fly.

At the bottom of the hill
A young girl
In my path.
No stopping
A straight line to the girl.
Shut my eyes.
No thud. No scream.
The toboggan comes to rest.
Open eyes
Step off
People laughing
Not my father.

"Go to the car."

I went, the girl smiled, I smiled back
The station wagon was locked.
I sat on the snow
Cold, the air cold, the snow cold.
An hour later
My father, brother, and sister
Dragging the toboggan and sled.
My father pulled me to my feet.
"Sit in the front. I'll turn on the heat."
Full blast all the way to Falmouth Foresides.

Not like today
Out the wind
In the sunlight
Fort Greene Park
Snow underfoot
The first snow in three years
But the same as Blackstrap,
Because as my father said,
"There are two seasons in Maine.
The season of good sledding
And the season a bad sledding."
And there is a lot of truth in those words
Especially with more snow coming
In two days.
More
Good sledding ahead.

Flat Earthers Beware

The world is not flat, but scholars of pseudo-cosmography cling to the belief in a 2D Earth like Seven-Day Adventists' hope for the 2nd Coming of their Messiah.

As early as 150BC Greeks divined the world was round through mathematics.

Western historians claim that ancient societies espoused flat-worldism, however the center of the cult was Kabbalishers in Europe, where the skies were too dark to witness the rotation of the planet.

Tibet and Egypt revered astrologers, however truth-seekers were burned at the stake in Europe.

Galileo Galilei suffered a life sentence of house arrest under the pedo-Vatican. Math was scorned. Telescopes were considered sacrilege. Knowledge was taboo. In death his desiccated middle finger promotes his regard on the Holy Roman Church's understanding on the universe.

Everyone gets an A in Calculus.

As long as they love God.

Personally I would rather hang with tramp Barbies than extoll the existence of a flat earth.

I have flown in Space over the northern pole

I have seen the the curvature of the earth.

I've circumnavigated the planet ten times.

The world is not flat, but it seems that way when you hit the surface.

Unless it's in the snow.

Snow is soft to a fallen man.

Even in a round world society.

Still Winter In March

Last week I braved a Nor-easter snowstorm and crossed Brooklyn to lunch with Dave Henderson in Williamsburg. I had thought winter was over. I was wrong.

My clothes were soaked by the slushy rain and the vortex sculptor asked opening his studio door. "How is it out there?"

"Wet, heavy, and white like a check-out girl at the IGA in Fort Kent."

"It must be wicked up there on the Allagash."

"If anyone knows is would be you." Dave had dated two women from Fort Kent.

The northern terminus of US 1 was no stranger to winter.

"I've summered there and wintered there. Bugs in the warm weather and snow in the cold, but this is just plain ugly." Dave had attended a Swiss boarding school.

The Alps had good snow for skiing.

Fort Kent's Lonesome Pine offered snow and ice, which was better than rock and ice.

"I haven't been up there since the winter of 1992." I had traveled north with a friend to see snow.

Fort Kent hadn't disappointed us.

"I once played up there with my band." Dave had been the drummer for the noise band, Spongehead.

Led Zeppelin stole several of their songs.

They hadn't received a single penny in royalties.

"Connie loved us."

"That was your first girlfriend from Fort Kent."

"Yes. It hadn't ended well, but it never dos when you break up to go out with the younger sister."

"And now you're with a third woman from Maine.

Kate was a great artist. They had been married for years. She was a wicked good woman.

"I thought she was English. She spoke like a Brit. How was I to know she was from Maine?"

"You're a regular magnet for Maine girls."

"Kate's the last."

"I know." I was faithful to my wife for years.

Dave and I were to lazy to cheat on a woman we love.

"Come on. Let's get lunch. I'm starving."

We walked out into the snowstorm.

Acqua Santa up the street served a lovely calamari and a filling

The snow was falling hard, but certainly not as hard as in Fort Kent.

Excerpt from THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN MAINE by Peter Nolan Smith

Old US 1 ended at its northern terminus of Fort Kent. Key West was 2377 miles to the South. Snow drifted chest-deep against the houses. Philippe tested his new jacket.

“It works.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else from LL Bean.” I was wearing layers. Heavy boots were a must. We had reached winter and night fell fast this far north.

We got a room at the motel nearest the ice-clogged river. The grinding floes filled the black air with horrid crunches.

“Tomorrow we’ll drive to the St. Lawrence and catch a ferry to the other side.” Icebreakers opened the seaway for ships throughout the winter. “We can reach Manicouagan Lake in two days. If the road’s open, I can make Newfoundland. It’s no Miami Beach.”

“I can’t go to Canada.” Philippe held his hands over the motel’s radiator. The interior surface of the windows were glazed by ice. A naked man wouldn’t last thirty minutes outside.

“Why not?”Winter would only get more winter farther north. “French-Canadian girls are very attractive.”

Their Gallic beauty was enhanced by not eating potato chips.

“I don’t doubt it, but I have a visa problem.” He avoided eye contact.

“What kind?”

“My visa is out of date.” He was embarrassed by this admission.

“How long?” Mexicans were called ‘wetbacks’. Up this far north illegals were known as ‘snowbacks’.

“Two years.”

“Damn.” We were 673 miles from Manhattan. I had a car and money in my pocket. I had dreamed on standing on the shores of Manicouagan Lake for years. I grabbed Philippe by his arm.

“Put on your coat.”

“It’s cold.” He protested without conviction.

“This is northern Maine. Of course it’s cold.” I forced Philippe to walk up US 1 onto the snow-covered steel truss bridge. The wind off the frozen river was ten degrees south of zero and Philippe’s long hair whipped across his face.

"That’s Quebec.” I pointed to the black bank across the St. John’s River.

“I know.” He refused to look at the other side.

“They have good food in Canada.” I appealed to his weakness for good food. Fort Kent’s cuisine consisted of doughty pizza and greasy burgers. “And there’s a great French restaurant in Clair. The Resto 120.”

The restaurant had been recommended by the motel manager. Her last name was Quelette. Fine cuisine was a specialty of the lost tribe of France.

“Tourtires, soupe aux pois, et pommes persillade. Cheese. Wine. Good bread.”

“Really?” Philippe licked his lips.

“And French girls are cute.” In my youth the sexiest girls at Old Orchard Beach were vacationeers from Quebec City. They looked like either Brigitte Bardot or Francoise Hardy. Philippe was almost sold by my sales pitch.

“You said that before.”

“And?”

“I can’t risk it.”

“What’s the risk?” No one was guarding the bridge. “On the way back you can hide in the trunk. It’s heated.”

If the technique worked for millions of wetbacks, it couldn’t be too much trouble to run a snowback operation at a sleepy border crossing.

“No way.” Philippe shook his head. His nose was reddening from the cold wind.

“It’s either that or burgers.”

“Sorry.” He walked away from my grasp.

“Sorry?” I trailed him thinking about dragging him across the desolate bridge.

“You can come back in the summer.”

“I have no idea where I will be in the summer, you damn limey.”

“Me neither, but it won’t be a deportation cell. Burgers and fries tonight It’s on me.” Philippe stormed over to the nearest bar. Neon signs FOOD and LABATT BEER flashed in its window. I stared across the icy river with disappointment and then joined Philippe in the Moose Inn, which had a pool table, jukebox, and wooden bar with draft beer.

He didn’t take off his hat.

The loggers, snowmobile sledders, and the state road crew in the bar were wearing theirs and I couldn’t tell the difference between the men and women.

“Fuck the Resto 120.” There were no pommes persillade on the Moose Inn’s menu. I threw my watch cap on the bar.

“What?” Philippe asked to appease my anger.

“Shut the fuck up.” I was in a bad mood and ordered a beer. The first Labatt went down in less than thirty seconds. The second took two minutes. The third lasted almost a quarter of an hour.

We ordered burgers and fries. My fifth beer washed down the hockey puck of a paddy and the sixth soaked up the sodden fries. At least I was warm.

A storm was due in two days, so everyone was getting in their drunk tonight. I bought drinks for the road crew. Philippe played DJ on the Jukebox. The crowd danced to LOUIE LOUIE and a thickly bearded drunk tapped my shoulder.

“What?”

“My name’s Rick.” The man had a cross-eyed squint marred by a cracked lens of his glasses. For a second looking at him was like seeing my personalized ‘Portrait of Dorian Grey’. We were nearing forty. Cathy Burns was the same age, but in my mind she was still pretty.

“Pleased to meet you.”

“I was wonderin’ if I dance with your date?”

“My date?” I was confused for a few seconds, until he glanced over his shoulder at Philippe.

Long hair hid the Englishman’s face.

“You’re saying that you want to dance with my date?”

“She’s better looking than any of the other girls in this town.” Rick lit a cigarette with a match, which flared over a calloused thumb. The townie didn’t register any pain and said with a dull vice, “Girls around here weigh as much as moose in a peatbog. I like them skinny. You mind?”

“Be my guest.” The Englander’s illegality in America had halted my exploration of the North and I smiled as I said, “Just a dance.”

“That’s savage good of you.” The townie staggered off to Philippe.

His mouth mouthed ‘you wanna dance’.

I put down my beer before I spit it out laughing.

The Brit came back to the bar and picked up his beer.

“Some guy just asked me for a dance.” Philippe was outraged by the offer.

“And you said no?”

“Of course I said no.” He was horrified by the thought that I presumed that he might say ‘yes’.

“Just so you know, he had the politeness to ask me if it was okay.”

“And what did you say?”

“I gave him the green light. Let’s face it, you have to be the prettiest girl in northern Maine by a long shot.” I figured that we were even.

“Thanks.”

“Did he offer to buy you a drink?”

“Yes.” Philippe had said the magic word.

“So get to it, Thelma.” I went over to the jukebox and dropped two quarters to play KC and the Sunshine Band and Nirvana. They were good dancing songs.

Philippe gave me the finger.

I returned the favor, for I was ready to party along the St. Johns. The meteor lake was for another day or year. I ordered tequilas and told the bartender about Rick’s mistaking Philippe for a woman. The logger bought another round and announced, “I’m not gay.”

“Only blind.” I tossed down the tequila.

“Being blind helps when you’re mating with swampdonkeys.”

“Drunk too for mating with a moose like you.” A woman shouted an inch from my ear. She had a nice smile. “But not the prettiest girl in Maine.

She pointed to Philippe.

He was dancing with a fat woman. Her face was glowing red. She was happy to have a stranger in her arms. I squinted to see if she was Cathy Bates. There was no resemblance and I returned to my beer. None of the woman at the Moose Bar asked me to dance.

I wasn’t their type, but I was good with that, for Fort Kent’s dead of winter was 2200 miles from Miami Beach and I didn’t see anything wrong with humming WHITE CHRISTMAS, for tonight promised that tomorrow would dawn on a good day for sledding, both for me and the prettiest girl in Maine. To purchase THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN MAINE by Peter Nolan Smith on Kindle for $1.99, please go to the following URL

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LCC0L40

THANK YOU

No Summer Yet In Boston

I left Boston in the autumn of 1976 for New York. I was in love with a girl from North Carolina. She departed from Brooklyn three hours before I arrived in a stolen car.

I should have returned back home, except Jim Spicer, Cecil Taylor's manager, offered e a bedroom in Park Slope and I worked for a tour of Edward Abee, the playwright of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINA WOOLF I never saw his work and he never knew my name. I was a good job.

Winter less so.

Snow buried New York and the blizzard of 1977 cut off New England fem the rest of the world.

Much like now.

Cold here at the Fort Greene Observatory and colder under the night shadow of Big Blue Hill.

All The Leaves Are Brown

Sunday morning I took this photo from the top floor of the Fort Greene Observatory. The sky was gray and the Mamas and Papas' CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' rang in my ears. I was 2900 miles from the West Coast and rain sloshed on the sidewalk. I went to work in wet gear. The streets of Manhattan swelled ankle-deep with the overflow of every deluge. Thankfully I was wearing a good boots and returned home at dark only a little wet.

My landlord and I smoked some reefer after which I fell into bed with the windows open to the cool autumn night.

Sirens sang on Fulton.

Ambulances, not fire or police.

Brooklyn was dangerous in the rain.

I watched WALKING DEAD and read PORIUS by John Cowper Powys. The Celtic fairy tale was a tough walk through the weeds of words obscuring the Arthurian legend. My eyes shut after two chapters, dreaming of my Pictish blood. I lasted two seconds as a near-sighted thane with a dull sword against the Roman shield and I wandered through the sleeplands until a whoosh of wind withered a shiver through the trees outside my window.

Golden leaves fluttered to the floor.

My breath floated on the darkness.

The temperature dropped every second.

Autumn was gone.

Winter was here.

I shut the windows and watched the wind rip away the leaves.

Mercy was out of the question for the new season's invaders.

Three layers of blankets shunned the cold, but this was only the beginning.

I was winter and winter was bound to get colder.

Earth was in Space and the temperature in Space was Absolute Zero.

To hear CALIFORNIA DREAMIN', please go to this URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN3GbF9Bx6E

THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN MAINE by Peter Nolan Smith on Kindle

In the winter of 1991 a British friend and I drove north from a snowless New York to find winter. Our trip took us through New England to the end of US 1 at Fort Kent, Maine. The river was frozen solid and the snow was chest deep. I wanted to forge on to Canada, but my friend had overstayed his visa. Disappointed by this setback we spent the night in Fort Kent, where we discovered that the prettiest girls in Maine are not all female.

It was a long way from New York.

And ever farther than from Miami Beach.

THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN MAINE is a photo-roman of that trip north.

Photos by Peter Nolan Smith

To purchase THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN MAINE by Peter Nolan Smith on Kindle for $1.99, please go to the following URL

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LCC0L40

THANK YOU

Snow Now Haiku

New England forest in the snow. White going gray. The light going white.

Foto by Aleta Wolfe

Neither Snow Nor Sleet

[1]

While the United States Postal Service has no official creed or motto the words 'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.' are carved into Manhattan's James Farley Post Office. According to Wikipedia the phrase was derived from a Herodutus translation describing the Persian system of mounted postal carriers circa 500 BCE "It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed." The US Post Service has mirrored this devotion to duty since its creation by Benjamin Franklin in 1791, however Saturday service was curtailed in New England by the heavy snowfall from Superstorm Nemo. Mottos change with the times and this weekend's failure to complete the appointed rounds served as a harbinger of decreased service, since the political hacks running the service have announced that later this year Saturday delivery will end for good. Now the unofficial motto will have to read 'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds, except of Saturdays and Sundays, because there is no mail on those days.' Somehow it doesn't have the same ring, but then I'm old school about everything.