Undoing Mother Nature on a Pristine Sunday

A morning like today is the only reason to live in such an inclement climate as this! It snowed  overnight, and the sky was a cerulean canopy anchored cloudless and taut  at the white horizons. The ground sparkled like a diamond cutter's factory floor.

Couldn't resist: went to the basement and hauled out my old x-country skis, poles and boots, dusted them off, layered up and struck out. Not yet 10 a.m. there were already a legion of men with machines (Bobcats and snow blowers) out there undoing Mother Nature's lovely handiwork. Why on Sunday a.m. when most people are only going to church anyway?

 It seems there could be only one reason: to assure themselves they can. The history of the human race has been a long battle for dominance from inner to outer space—microbes to the moons of Mars. Any time we can score a point or gain a few yards on Mother Nature, the human bean doesn't hesitate, though we can see the destruction our control obsession has cost: end of species, destruction of habitat, erosion, pollution, ad nauseam.

In my absence for a Bloody Mary & breakfast, the men and their machines had been so successful that on the return trip, after I traced my tracks east of school and behind Althof's, I had to remove my skies and walk up the town hill. Carrying skis on one shoulder, poles in the other hand, I hit the cement hard where some genius with a snow blower exposed the ice—it had rained before it turned to snow.

Keep a sharp eye peeled for humans and their machines. Lest you end up like me-on a heating pad, or worse!!!