Feeling for my friends in Boston

By Jamie Rieger
By all accounts, we in southeast Alberta, have thus far had a fairly mild winter thanks in part to a weak El Nino coming off the Pacific Ocean.
While the drier, warmer temperatures have been welcome to most of us, there has been a double-edged sword here because with the warmer temperatures has come the freezing rain instead of snow and days were black ice kept many motorists off the road. I profess I would rather have colder temperatures and no snow than have to plan road trips around ‘black ice days’.
Still, I can’t complain about this winter. When I go onto my Facebook page and see some of the comments posted by my Red Sox friends in New England, I consider myself (and the rest of us in southeast Alberta) rather fortunate that we are not having the winter they are having down east.
I don’t think I can count the times I have responded to a post with something like, “Wow, you guys are having a brutal winter. Stay warm, stay safe.”
And, looking at some of the photos of Fenway Park posted a couple weeks ago, it’s hard to imagine that Spring Training in Florida has already begun. Drifts higher than the right field wall and many of the seats completely buried, it’s no wonder the front office was offering free Red Sox tickets for people who came to help shovel them out. It’s a good thing the Sox are in Florida and the home opener of the regular season doesn’t happen until Apr. 13. Maybe the snow will be melted by then.
The winter weather here has been nothing more than the occasional minor inconvenience, but the Maritimes and New England have been getting absolutely hammered with snow. Over 100 inches so far and counting!
A couple of people I know use oil for heating their homes have run out and vowing to switch to natural gas. I do have to chuckle a bit at the people advising them not to switch to natural gas though, because “oil furnaces will just burn and gas furnaces will explode. Oil burns, gas blows”.
I really have sympathy for folks down east and am feeling lucky that it is not us this time around. Soon, the snow will melt, the sun will come out, and before long, they will be heading to Fenway for that home opener and will be able to forget all about this winter.

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