It’s 10 a.m. on the first Monday of the New Year. We should be at 37,000 feet, somewhere over Utah, approaching the halfway point on our return to Santa Rosa. Christmas with the kids and grandkids is always a special time for us. When we acquired the magazine more than 13 years ago, we didn’t have any grandkids to celebrate the holidays with—now we have five.
Even though our roots are in Chicago, we, like so many others, have been seduced by the multiple charms of the North Bay. The transition, at times, has been surprising. For instance, how is it possible that a kid from the south side of Chicago now roots for the 49ers and the Giants instead of the Bears and the White Sox? How did the word “sustainable” creep into my everyday vocabulary? At what point did Joni and I turn into wine snobs? How long has it been since we began counting down the days to a fresh crab season? And something I find personally amazing: How is it possible to not have one golf game rained out in more than a decade?
A little snow and cold normally leaves folks in the Midwest unfazed. Six to 10 inches of snow and temperatures in the teens, while slightly annoying, does nothing to interrupt the normal flow of life. Kids go to school, parents go to work, trucks plow, salt’s spread and life goes on. However, this trip turned into a totally surreal experience.
Snow began falling on Saturday and continued through Sunday, with accumulations around two feet. As the storm moved east, an arctic front moved south into the Midwest. As I sit here writing this, although the sun’s shining, the outside temperature is negative 14 degrees Fahrenheit! With winds around 20 mph, the wind chill factor drops the perceived cold to approximately negative 45 degrees. Spend five minutes outside and unprotected skin is frostbitten. All schools are closed and there are wind-driven, six-foot-high drifts of snow everywhere. Some local roads are impassable and even major highways (I-80, I-65 and I-55) have been closed at times. O’Hare and Midway airports have cancelled 1,685 flights—with our flight today being, to us, the most noteworthy casualty.
There’s no food left in the house, so we’re going to have to brave a trip to the local grocery store. We’ll be dressed in full survival gear. With practically no movement outside, it almost seems as though we’ve been dropped into one of those apocalyptic, end-of-the-world movies, I used to enjoy watching so much. Watching a weather forecast did little to buoy my spirits, since I learned that it’s much warmer in most of Alaska than it is here. Fairbanks is 37 degrees today and Santa Rosa will enjoy a balmy 65.
Some things, however, seem to be universal despite the weather. Listening to Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s mayor, bloviate on the emergency weather plan he’s personally putting in place reminded me of listening to San Francisco’s former mayor, Gavin Newsom, wax narcissistically about (pick a subject) being so enlightened that his policy would be mankind’s savior. (OK, all of you who thought, “OMG, he’s about to write one column without a single political comment!”—you lost.)
Finally, it also just dawned on me why so many of our Midwest friends and family still come out to visit so often. I’d always thought, “Hell, we sure are popular.” Now I realize it’s not us (well, maybe it’s Joni), but it’s Wine Country—and the weather—and I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to being back there.
