The other day I was driving down Dekalb Avenue and read an open-call sign for workers.
DRIFTERS WANTED.
I blinked and the offer of paradise vanished jarring my eyes back into focus.
DRIVERS WANTED.
What a difference a single letter makes, then again I've always sought something more than the world has to offer and sometimes less.
Johnny Cash - Hobo Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg_uMvQ9Ji4
Dakota from the 169 Bar had heard my tale of skating on the sidewalks of the East Village in 1992. He laughed in disbelief, however the rock-n-roll bartender hailed from Tucson and no one from the desert knows anything about ice other than ice cubes for a drink.
This winter has been exceedingly mild with no snow. Maine was beset by a deep freeze and a circular floe of ice formed on the Presumpscot River upstream from the old SD Warren paper mill in Westbrook. Newspaper reported the phenomena as a galactic apparition. None of them have lived through a New England winter where trees in Aroostock County exploded in the arctic cold.
Another time I was driving taxi down Clearwater Street next to the Christian Science Mother Church in Boston. The asphalt of the back road was covered in black ice. I tapped on my brakes the the Checker Cab went into a side slide. Two Boston cops were eating donuts at the end of the block. The driver noticed my approach.
Slow and elegant.
He tried to pull ahead, but the cop cruiser’s rear tires caught no traction. Both officer watch in anticipation of a crash. The Checker stopped an inch from the cop car. All three of us smiled at each other.
Back in the 1970s ice was ice. Sometimes good and maybe times in the century of climate change not good.
Back in the 20th Century the ice was thick on Watchic Pond. Twelve inches thick.
Good for skating once the snow was shoveled off the surface, but nothing beat skating up 2nd Avenue. Nothing at all.
Obviously if they had filmed NIAGARA in the winter, Marilyn Monroe would have never gone over the falls with her murderous husband played by Joseph Cotton.
Industrial ruins haunt both sides of the Hudson River.
Tall chimneys mark them from a distance.
On this winter morning no one is there but me.
Walls stand as tombstones.
They act as grafitti billboards
For my eyes only.
Black is our safe shadow. Scream into her earth and cry. Protect with unconditional love. Hold your echo mist important to death. I dare any dead mouth to test my ethics.
Poetry is the only magic left in this desolate world.
Like red hands on a cave wall in Sulawesi.
Or Legong dancers in Ubud.
Modern roads offer no enchantment.
Where are the hobos?
Only in books and photos.
And then in poetry.
There's a race of men that don't fit in They roam the fields and roam the sea There's a race that can't stay still And they climb the mountain crest So they break the heart of kith and kin For theirs s the curse of the gypsy blood And roam the world at will And they don't know how to rest.
Robert Service, Poet.
I know both the road and poetry.
Anyone who loves magic does.
Two years ago my friend Alison in Palm Beach found this poem. Her trees were dying from the cold.
" WINTER " by Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre
Shit It's Cold
The End
That was one of coldest weeks in American weather history.
Even Florida had snow.
Winters weren't always that way and maybe next year will be normal, but in April 1971 I escaped the cold in Boston by driving to Florida with Mark, John, and Tommy. It was spring break. We had rented a house in Fort Lauderdale across from the infamous Elbow Room.
The Sunshine State's drinking age was 18.
The four of us were legal.
We crossed the state line around 9pm. WBZ was on the radio. The Boston station was broadcasting the NHL play-offs. Bruins-Canadians. We were leading 'les Habitants' by 2 goals in the 3rd period. The station's 50,000 kilowatt signal gave out at the 'free OJ' welcome stand. We reached Fort Lauderdale at dawn. We swam in the Gulf Stream at sunrise.
At Wolfies we ordered breakfast and I read the morning newspaper. The Bruins has lost 7-5. None of my friends cared about the loss.
We were used to losing to les Habs and the girls on the beach were wearing bikinis.
I have my own short poem on cold season.
"Fuck winter."
Foto by Alison R
Most people in the world accept the threat of Climate Change or Global Warming, however over 13% of Americans along with the Saudis and Indonesians deny that the rampant greed of Mankind has any effect on the weather and another 40% of my countrymen are agnostics. Right-wing newspapers report the expansion of glaciers, while scientists announced that grass is growing at the foot of Mount Everest. I am not surprised, since the fossil fuel industry has spent billions of dollars to convince these citizens that 'we' i.e. humans are not to blame.
This winter in New York snow has only fallen twice without any lasting accumulation, yet the forecast for the next ten days predicts snow over the weekend. It might end up as rain, but however the Ice Age flourishes in my friend's freezer. Waffles are frozen into his mini-glacier and a small pint on vodka chills on the rim.
His ice pack is a thing of beauty for someone from the north, because in the last century we had snow and lots of it.
Falmouth Foresides, Maine 1958
The US Meteorological Survey has reported that New York City received a little over twenty inches of snow this winter. All I saw were a few dustings, then again throughout February I was in Kenya and Tanzania.
Snow topped Mount Kilimanjaro and some days ran down the slopes, however the equatorial sun melted the snow cover by noon.
The temperature at the Maranzi Hut was around freezing at night, but my sleeping bag kept me warm, so I spend another winter without snow.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
