I was born in Washington DC and we lived in an apartment complex in Silver Spring, MD. I can't imagine that during the couple of years we lived there that they got as much snow as the DC metro area is getting this year! Many of you readers know that folks south of the Mason-Dixon line don't always know how to drive in the snow. A lot of times their tires are bald and they don't get enough practice knowing how to pull out and when to brake.
It was the winter just before I turned two that the area got a snowfall. I guess Dad hurt his back pretty badly trying to help a car that was stuck in the snow get out. The driver had been giving the car gas and spinning their wheels at such a speed they were screaming and whining. I don't know if his exasperated, "Crazy b*tch!" remark was before or after he hurt his back but it became one of the DC stories that was shared from my childhood.
My mom gave up her job with the FBI to raise me. She took me out to the park when the weather was fine and visited indoors with friends and other tenants during the rare times DC became unnavigable with snow. That same winter we were visiting one of Mom's friends in her apartment when the lady's priest stopped by for a visit. The way I imagine the next part of the story is that the adults had just enjoyed coffee and cake and clean-up was taking place. The lady turned on her in-sink garbage disposal and it gave out what to me would have been a very unusual squeal as it did it job. My comment was, "Crazy b*tch!" It must have sounded to me just like the tires I had heard spinning in the snow.
Forty-seven years later and no tire spinning for me today. School was canceled from another crazy winter storm but the weather is to turn even more icy in the next 24 hours. I got out and got my run in before the roads got even worse. I thought of Jim cheering me on, "Go, go, go!" This is also based on when I turned two and would say that as I held my two index fingers in the air. (See 1964 archives at this link.)
Today I started from the far end of our road, through a deep snow covered hill then up and into Stern's Crossing. I was really surprised that the roads in that fancy-shmancy development were so poorly maintained this morning! I dropped down onto Houserville Rd via October and Creekside Drives to add in an extra mile and was thrilled that next to no traffic was out.
Almost everywhere I ran only half of the road had been maintained. Luckily it was the side I was running on and it was a day to make certain to run facing traffic. As I jogged up Trout Rd a few people were out cleaning off their cars and I wished them a good morning. I don't think they were expecting to see me and there was a bit of surprise in their expression and voice as they returned my greeting.
I did a couple of laps on Spring Valley Rd but even the horses were staying in the barn this morning. The sky stayed grey and a spitting drizzle had started by the time I had made it 5.5 miles.
The 2 miles to home were very sloppy along Shilo Rd and through the Walmart complex. People were finally making it out into the world to get their shopping done. A Walmart employee was taking her smoke break and reading a book out in front of the store as I ran by. She looked up at me and her face had the same surprised expression as the residents on Trout Rd I had greeted. I suddenly got a clear picture of what they were all thinking about me, a seemingly insane woman running in terribly foul weather. "Crazy b*tch!"
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