Winter Blizzard Quotes

Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowflake.

How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards would be at one's throat all the sooner.

One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards will be at one's throat all the sooner.

The Winter Woman is as wild as a blizzard, as fresh as new snow. While some see her as cold, she has a fiery heart under that ice-queen exterior. She likes the stark simplicity of Japanese art and the daring complexity of Russian literature. She prefers sharp to flowing lines, brooding to pouting, and rock and roll to country and western. Her drink is vodka, her car is German, her analgesic is Advil. The Winter Woman likes her men weak and her coffee strong. She is prone to anemia, hysteria, and suicide.

Trees lose their leaves in blizzards like these.

It snowed all week. Wheels and footsteps moved soundlessly on the street, as if the business of living continued secretly behind a pale but impenetrable curtain. In the falling quiet there was no sky or earth, only snow lifting in the wind, frosting the window glass, chilling the rooms, deadening and hushing the city. At all hours it was necessary to keep a lamp lighted, and Mrs. Miller lost track of the days: Friday was no different from Saturday and on Sunday she went to the grocery: closed, of course.

Up in the highlands blizzards howl like the widows of fishermen and the wind blisters the skin off your face. Winter comes like a punch in the dark. The uninhabited places are as cruel as any executioner.

When it is winter and we must walk in the blizzard snow do not our fingers and toes whisper death  And when winter is at last over. . .can we not hear our bellies whisper death to us  In the dark don't we know  And when we are paralyzed by nightmares  We know what you are.  With our first cries we rail against you.  We see you in every drop of blood in every tear.

Snow harder! Snow more! Snow blizzards galore! I can’t get enough Of the fluffy white stuff! Snow! Snow! Snow! Snow a ton! Snow a heap! Snow ten feet deep! I wouldn’t cry If it snowed til July. Snow! Snow! Snow!

I don't know what I was hoping for. Some small praise, I guess. A bit of encouragement. I didn't get it. Miss Parrish took me aside one day after school let out. She said she'd read my stories and found them morbid and dispiriting. She said literature was meant to uplift the heart and that a young woman such as myself ought to turn her mind to topics more cheerful and inspiring than lonely hermits and dead children. "Look around yourself, Mathilda," she said. "At the magnificence of nature. It should inspire joy and awe. Reverence. Respect. Beautiful thoughts and fine words." I had looked around. I'd seen all the things she'd spoken of and more besides. I'd seen a bear cub lift it's face to the drenching spring rains. And the sliver moon of winter, so high and blinding. I'd seen the crimson glory of a stand of sugar maples in autumn and the unspeakable stillness of a mountain lake at dawn. I'd seen them and loved them. But I'd also seen the dark of things. The starved carcasses of winter deer. The driving fury of a blizzard wind. And the gloom that broods under the pines always. Even on the brightest days.

The day, a compunctious Sunday after a week of blizzards, had been part jewel, part mud. In the midst of my usual afternoon stroll through the small hilly town attached to the girls' college where I taught French literature, I had stopped to watch a family of brilliant icicles drip-dripping from the eaves of a frame house. So clear-cut were their pointed shadows on the white boards behind them that I was sure the shadows of the falling drops should be visible too. But they were not. ("The Vane Sisters")

Wintry it ain't- no complaints! Snowier: Storefronts are showier, light displays glowier. Shoppers are prowling, blizzard howling! Drifts a-heaping, lords a-leaping, Yule logs burning, gifts returning. Winds are keen for 2015!

Two days ago, birdsong filled the air, which smelled of promise and upcoming summer. So much for that. Instead, she awoke to another blizzard. Welcome to the Lowlands, where spring is merely a two-degree warmer extension of winter.

It fell like powdered sugar, brittle, yet airy and without direction as it covered the land under an unforgiving tomb.

Been thinking of my grandfather, whose wayward brilliance skipped my father’s generation. Once, he showed me an aquatint of a certain Siamese temple. Don’t recall its name, but ever since a disciple of the Buddha preached on the spot centuries ago, every bandit king, tyrant, and monarch of that kingdom has enhanced it with marble towers, scented arboretums, gold-leafed domes, lavished murals on its vaulted ceilings, set emeralds into the eyes of its statuettes. When the temple finally equals its counterpart in the Pure Land, so the story goes, that day humanity shall have fulfilled its purpose, and Time itself shall come to an end. To men like Ayrs, it occurs to me, this temple is civilization. The masses, slaves, peasants, and foot soldiers exist in the cracks of its flagstones, ignorant even of their ignorance. Not so the great statesmen, scientists, artists, and most of all, the composers of the age, any age, who are civilization’s architects, masons, and priests. Ayrs sees our role is to make civilization ever more resplendent. My employer’s profoundest, or only, wish is to create a minaret that inheritors of Progress a thousand years from now will point to and say, “Look, there is Vyvyan Ayrs!” How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn’t, the wolves and blizzards would be at one’s throat all the sooner.

One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring. A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges. A March morning is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese.

That was on a night in August. Dad Lewis died early that morning and the young girl Alice from next door got lost in the evening and then found her way home in the dark by the streetlights of town and so returned to the people who loved her. And in the fall the days turned cold and the leaves dropped off the trees and in the winter the wind blew from the mountains and out on the high plains of Holt County there were overnight storms and three-day blizzards.

Jack Frost hibernates from March to November, dreaming snowflake designs to share in December. With glittering breath, snowstorms, and blue blizzards, lakes made of crystal, he’s an icy wizard! People assume winter will be harsh, cold, and cruel and that Jack must be a wicked, cold-weather ghoul. But he’s truly an artist, known as Bringer of Ice, and although his heart is cold, he’s really quite nice.

Mostly, kids were expected to entertain themselves and stay out of their parents’ hair. To that end, you were sent outside to play at the drop of a hat. It wasn’t an option; it was a standing mandate. If there wasn’t a winter blizzard or a spring rainstorm or a summer heat wave, you went outside and stayed outside until the next mealtime came around.

Khione’s eyes flared pure white. For once, she seemed at a loss for words. She stormed back up the stairs—literally. Halfway up, she turned into a blizzard and disappeared.

It was Vaughn who put me back into the icy blizzard I’d escaped from. His twin had thawed me, but he froze me all over again.

I had looked around. I'd seen all the things she'd spoken of and more besides. I'd seen a bear cub lift its face to the drenching spring rains. And the silver moon of winter, so high and blinding. I'd seen the crimson glory of a stand of sugar maples in autumn and the unspeakable stillness of a mountain lake at dawn. I'd seen them and loved them. But I'd also seen the dark of things. The starved carcasses of winter deer. The driving fury of a blizzard wind. And the gloom that broods under the pines always. Even on the brightest of days.

Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn’t, the wolves and blizzards would be at one’s throat all the sooner.

How I wish to fly with the geese away from dreary November days, the "freeze-up," and cruel winter. Away from loneliness, isolation, and anxiety bred by blizzards. Most every local person I've talked to grudgingly admits to an autumn apprehension. It is part and parcel of an Adirondacker's psychological makeup. The geese contaminate us with this strange depression on their southbound flight and cure us with their northbound. In between, we try to tolerate winter, each in his or her own way.

How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because if one didn’t, the wolves and blizzards would be at one’s throat all the sooner.

Once my father checked into a hotel during a shoe-selling trip and a clerk told him: “You’ll like it here, Mr. Reagan, we don’t permit a Jew in the place.” My father, who told us the story later, said he looked at the clerk angrily and picked up his suitcase and left. “I’m a Catholic,” he said. “If it’s come to the point where you won’t take Jews, then some day you won’t take me either.” Because it was the only hotel in town, he spent the night in his car during a winter blizzard and I think it may have led to his first heart attack.

My parents constantly drummed into me the importance of judging people as individuals. There was no more grievous sin at our household than a racial slur or other evidence of religious or racial intolerance. A lot of it, I think, was because my dad had learned what discrimination was like firsthand. He’d grown up in an era when some stores still had signs at their door saying, NO DOGS OR IRISHMEN ALLOWED. When my brother and I were growing up, there were still ugly tumors of racial bigotry in much of America, including the corner of Illinois where we lived. At our one local movie theater, blacks and whites had to sit apart—the blacks in the balcony. My mother and father urged my brother and me to bring home our black playmates, to consider them equals, and to respect the religious views of our friends, whatever they were. My brother’s best friend was black, and when they went to the movies, Neil sat with him in the balcony. My mother always taught us: “Treat thy neighbor as you would want your neighbor to treat you,” and “Judge everyone by how they act, not what they are.” Once my father checked into a hotel during a shoe-selling trip and a clerk told him: “You’ll like it here, Mr. Reagan, we don’t permit a Jew in the place.” My father, who told us the story later, said he looked at the clerk angrily and picked up his suitcase and left. “I’m a Catholic,” he said. “If it’s come to the point where you won’t take Jews, then some day you won’t take me either.” Because it was the only hotel in town, he spent the night in his car during a winter blizzard and I think it may have led to his first heart attack.

One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn’t, the wolves and blizzards would be at one’s throat all the sooner.

It was one of the worst winters in Texas and Western history, when cattle perished like flies in great blizzards and snow fell on San Francisco and LA.

Never mind literal climate change, there’s been a whole seasonal shift. It’s like walking in a blizzard all the time just trying to get to what’s really happening beyond the noise and hype.

The Life of a Day Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own personality quirks which can easily be seen if you look closely. but there are so few days as compared to people, not to mention dogs, that it would be surprising if a day were not a hundred times more interesting than most people. But usually they just pass, mostly unnoticed, unless they are wildly nice, like autumn ones full of red maple trees and hazy sunlight, or if they are grimly awful ones in a winter blizzard that kills the lost traveler and bunches of cattle. For some reason we like to see days pass, even though most of us claim we don't want to reach our last one for a long time. We examine each day before us with barely a glance and say, no, this isn't one I've been looking for, and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, when, we are convinced, our lives will start for real. Meanwhile, this day is going by perfectly well-adjusted, as some days are, with the right amounts of sunlight and shade, and a light breeze scented with a perfume made from the mixture of fallen apples, corn stubble, dry oak leaves, and the faint odor of last night's meandering skunk.

A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges.

Before a blizzard, I should look upon the dark earth for what seemed the last time, before the punctillated pattern of white made it something else entirely. Such helplessness in seeing the warm, familiar, kindly autumn world swallowed bit by bit. On the deck of the Demeter, looking out upon the sea and the non-existent strigoi, I felt everything disappear under a snowfall that no one else perceived. Without yet knowing why, I was certain that, somehow, Winter had embarked with us.

What's meant to be is set; High priesthood is the philosophers stone turning all your worthless metals into golden thrones. God & I do it alone; complete opposition of the human hive of these drones for they're prone to do as they're told. Threaten them with fictitious statues, watch em fall and they fold. It's winter blizzard year-round for this dictatorship is heartless and cold. Where is there to turn to when there's no where to go? Can't tell the difference between friendly and foe.

She walked me through the basics. Her father had made a windfall buying saline IV drips and reselling them at markup when consecutive pandemics hit. Same with grain reserves and famine, with coal and electricity during a winter of freak blizzards.

An early spring started one morning in March with a swarm of sudden, glassy, bird cries, and then the cool jewelry of primrose and violet loosened themselves in the dirt. Then summer burst into the world like a gorgeous car accident- opening eyes all over our bodies in the brilliant light. Fall- the smell of pumpkin guts, sluttish and unsweetened. Until winter fell all over us like pieces of heaven, glazed with oxygen or ether, hitting the grounder in small, cold shards. It was like a year in Eden where no Eve had ever lived.

ONE SWALLOW does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring. A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges.

As they did so, Andrews looked back upon the valley which in a few moments would be gone from his sight. At this distance, the new growth of grass was like a faint green mist that clung to the surface of the earth and glistened in the early morning sun. Andrews could not believe that this same valley had been the one he had seen pounding and furious with the threshings of a thousand dying buffalo; he could not believe that the grass had once been stained and matted with blood; he could not believe that this was the same stretch of land that had been torn by the fury of winter blizzards; he could not believe that a few weeks ago it had been stark and featureless under a blinding cover of white. He looked up and down its length, as far as he could see. Even from this distance, if he strained his eyes, he could see the expanse dotted with the dark carcasses of the buffalo.

AUTHOR’S NOTE Dear reader: This story was inspired by an event that happened when I was eight years old. At the time, I was living in upstate New York. It was winter, and my dad and his best friend, “Uncle Bob,” decided to take my older brother, me, and Uncle Bob’s two boys for a hike in the Adirondacks. When we left that morning, the weather was crisp and clear, but somewhere near the top of the trail, the temperature dropped abruptly, the sky opened, and we found ourselves caught in a torrential, freezing blizzard. My dad and Uncle Bob were worried we wouldn’t make it down. We weren’t dressed for that kind of cold, and we were hours from the base. Using a rock, Uncle Bob broke the window of an abandoned hunting cabin to get us out of the storm. My dad volunteered to run down for help, leaving my brother Jeff and me to wait with Uncle Bob and his boys. My recollection of the hours we spent waiting for help to arrive is somewhat vague except for my visceral memory of the cold: my body shivering uncontrollably and my mind unable to think straight. The four of us kids sat on a wooden bench that stretched the length of the small cabin, and Uncle Bob knelt on the floor in front of us. I remember his boys being scared and crying and Uncle Bob talking a lot, telling them it was going to be okay and that “Uncle Jerry” would be back soon. As he soothed their fear, he moved back and forth between them, removing their gloves and boots and rubbing each of their hands and feet in turn. Jeff and I sat beside them, silent. I took my cue from my brother. He didn’t complain, so neither did I. Perhaps this is why Uncle Bob never thought to rub our fingers and toes. Perhaps he didn’t realize we, too, were suffering. It’s a generous view, one that as an adult with children of my own I have a hard time accepting. Had the situation been reversed, my dad never would have ignored Uncle Bob’s sons. He might even have tended to them more than he did his own kids, knowing how scared they would have been being there without their parents. Near dusk, a rescue jeep arrived, and we were shuttled down the mountain to waiting paramedics. Uncle Bob’s boys were fine—cold and exhausted, hungry and thirsty, but otherwise unharmed. I was diagnosed with frostnip on my fingers, which it turned out was not so bad. It hurt as my hands were warmed back to life, but as soon as the circulation was restored, I was fine. Jeff, on the other hand, had first-degree frostbite. His gloves needed to be cut from his fingers, and the skin beneath was chafed, white, and blistered. It was horrible to see, and I remember thinking how much it must have hurt, the damage so much worse than my own. No one, including my parents, ever asked Jeff or me what happened in the cabin or questioned why we were injured and Uncle Bob’s boys were not, and Uncle Bob and Aunt Karen continued to be my parents’ best friends. This past winter, I went skiing with my two children, and as we rode the chairlift, my memory of that day returned. I was struck by how callous and uncaring Uncle Bob, a man I’d known my whole life and who I believed loved us, had been and also how unashamed he was after. I remember him laughing with the sheriff, like the whole thing was this great big adventure that had fortunately turned out okay. I think he even viewed himself as sort of a hero, boasting about how he’d broken the window and about his smart thinking to lead us to the cabin in the first place. When he got home, he probably told Karen about rubbing their sons’ hands and feet and about how he’d consoled them and never let them get scared. I looked at my own children beside me, and a shudder ran down my spine as I thought about all the times I had entrusted them to other people in the same way my dad had entrusted us to Uncle Bob, counting on the same naive presumption that a tacit agreement existed for my children to be cared for equally to their own.

The Merry Chrismouse by Stewart Stafford What a time for the merry Chrismouse, Making toys in his workshop/house, Everyone contributes, even his spouse, With Christmas cheer, no one will douse. A sprig of holly for a present tree, Blizzard snow is grated cheese, The kindly rodent set to please, When he comes on Christmas Eve. Nuts and seeds on their button table, Playing games and telling fables, Discarded tinsel on the wall of gable, In midwinter's icy spell unstable. A time for amnesia that felines exist, Kindness and joy at their fingertips, Baby mice excitedly make lists, To have many gifts when they insist. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

At noontime in midsummer, when the sun is at its highest and everything is in a state of embroiled repose, flashes may be seen in the southern sky. Into the radiance of daylight come bursts of light even more radiant. Exactly half a year later, when the fjord is frozen over and the land buried in snow, the very same spirit taunts creation. At night cracks in the ice race from one end of the fjord to the other, resounding like gunshots or like the roaring of a mad demon. The peasants dig tunnels from their door through the drifts over to the cow shed. Where are the trolls and the elves now, and where are the sounds of nature? Even the Beast may well be dead and forgotten. Life itself hangs in suspension - existence has shrunk to nothingness. Now it is only a question of survival. The fox thrashes around in a blizzard in the oak thicket and fights his way out, mortally terrified. It is a time of stillness. Hoarfrost lies in a timeless shroud over the fjord. All day long a strange, sighing sound is heard from out on the ice. It is a fisherman, standing alone at his hole and spearing eel. One night it snows again. The air is sheer snow and the wind a frigid blast. No living creature is stirring. Then a rider comes to the crossing at Hvalpsund. There is no difficulty in getting over­ - he does not even slacken his speed, but rides at a brisk trot from the shore out onto the ice. The hoofbeats thunder beneath him and the ice roars for miles around. He reaches the other side and rides up onto the land. The horse — a mighty steed not afraid to shake its shanks - cleaves the storm with neck outstretched. The blizzard blows the rider's ashen cape back and he sits naked, with his bare bones sticking out and the snow whistling about his ribs. It is Death that is out riding. His crown sits on three hairs and his scythe points triumphantly backward. Death has his whims. He takes it into his head to dis­mount when he sees a light in the winter night. He gives his horse a slap on the haunch and it leaps into the air and is gone. For the rest of the way Death walks like a carefree man, sauntering absentmindedly along. In the snow-streaked night a crow is sitting on a wayside branch. Its head is much too large for its body. Its beady eyes sparkle when it sees the wanderer's familiar face, and its cawing turns into silent laughter as it throws its beak wide open, with its spear-like tongue sticking far out. It seems almost ready to fall off the branch with its laughter, but it keeps on looking at Death with consuming merriment. Death moves on. Suddenly he finds himself beside a man. He raps the man on the back with his fingers and leaves him lying there. There is a light. Death keeps his eye on the light and walks toward it. He moves into the shaft of light and labors his way over a frozen field. But when he comes close enough to make out the house a strange fervor grips him. He has finally come home - yes, this has been his true home from the beginning. Thank goodness he has now found it again after so much difficulty. He goes in, and a solitary old couple make him welcome. They cannot know that he is anything more than a traveling tradesman, spent and sick. He lies down quickly on the bed without a word. They can see that he is really far gone. He lies on his back while they move about the room with the candle and chat. He forgets them. For a long time he lies there, quiet but awake. Finally there are a few low moans, faltering and tentative. He begins to cry, and then quickly stops. But now the moans continue, becoming louder, and then going over to tearless sobs. His body arches up, resting only on head and heels. He stares in anguish at the ceiling and screams, screams like a woman in labor. Finally he collapses, and his cries begin to subside. Little by little he falls silent and lies quiet.

As the blizzard roared outside we prepared for the night. “The sandwiches on the kitchen table wouldn’t be our only food. The sandwiches we would have that night would just be the beginning of a feast. After supper we threw some blankets and a quilt down in front of the stove in the living room. “Can’t trust the two of you for a minute,” she said, laughing. “Come to bed when you’re ready.” With that she went into what should have been the dining room, which now had a big Victorian style bed in it. There must have been bedrooms upstairs, but everything we needed was on the main floor. Damn, I thought, how did this ever happen? Rita called out. “Come to bed now, children. I’m freezing!

He hated this time of year. Every day was shorter than the last. Night began to fall in late afternoon. Winter could arrive on any given day and stay until April. They had had an ice storm on Halloween and a blizzard on Veterans Day, followed by three days of rain that had caused flash flooding in low-lying areas. The odd day of stunning, electric blue skies and a paltry few lingering fall colors couldn’t make up for the stretches of bleak gray or the damp cold that knifed to the bone.

The Bodhisattva rests in glacial air, under a dust of snow, leaves fallen into one arm. This fairyland Buddha sits in an exquisite etched chair, a powdery image of beauty. Winter brings blinding thoughts of flaky falling dreams, slushy icy hard footprints, with crunchy mantras of wind. Forever surrounded by obscuring of days, whiteout of the mundane, penetrating freeze, and blizzard of emptiness. Crystalline diamond Vajra surrounded by endings. Slow drifting meditations that meander to the ground. White snow like bones, cold as death, frozen in compassion. Drifting to enlightenment with vows to return until all are in blessed fields. Icy mantra Om Mani Padme Hum to mountain emptiness, echoing forever in alpine Buddhafields. Not this, nor that— but always something else. These days, we mostly see blessed falling flakes of snow.

Dreams aren’t soft, tender pups wrapped in blankets against the cold. No, dreams are hungry, feral wolves who take the cold as a challenge. They walk through ice, because they know ice ends. Blizzards stop. Winter doesn’t last forever. There is a refuge, even if you can’t see it through the storm.

A blizzard thrashes down the hall, hail and snow rising around the Prince of Winter as he storms toward us and snarls, “Get your hands off my mate.

It was still the Wild West in those days, the Far West.… It was a land of vast silent spaces, of lovely rivers, and of plains where the wild game stared at the passing horseman. It was a land of scattered ranches, of herds of long-horned cattle, and reckless riders who unmoved looked in the eyes of life or of death. In that land we lived a free and hardy life, with horse and with rifle. We worked under the scorching midsummer sun, when the wide plains shimmered and wavered in the heat; and we knew the freezing misery of riding night guard round the cattle in the late fall round-up. In the soft springtime the stars were glorious in our eyes each night before we fell asleep; and in the winter we rode through blinding blizzards, when the driven snow-dust burnt our faces.… We knew toil and hardship and hunger and thirst; and we saw men die violent deaths as they worked among the horses and cattle, or fought in evil feuds with one another; but we felt the beat of hardy life in our veins, and ours was the glory of work and the joy of living.

Babylon, Sodom and the Roman Empire fell, but the winter blizzard cuts as cruelly as ever, and love still uproots the heart better than an imagined landmine.

That winter remains in my mind as one great blizzard of verbiage. It started with the insolvency of the Employment and Workforce Commission. The Commission had been running through funds budgeted for unemployment benefits at an alarming rate, and nobody had noticed that it was about to run out completely. The Commission blamed the legislature, the legislature blamed the Commission, and the governor blamed the legislature and the Commission, but especially the Commission. The Commission, it turned out, would have to apply for federal money to avoid a shortfall, and for the application to be legal the governor would have to sign it. It was a perfect set-up for him. He refused to sign the application unless the Commission agreed to his demands, one of which was an independent audit. The Commission delayed. The deadline approached; if it were to pass, the Commission would be unable to issue unemployment checks. There was great outrage from the people known for great outrage. Everybody (well, everybody in the state’s media—but it felt like everybody everywhere) was talking about “playing chicken.” The governor was “playing chicken” with the Employment and Workforce Commission; there was a “game of chicken” going on between the state’s chief executive and its workforce agency. The governor was also said to be “holding the unemployed hostage” in his vainglorious attempt to get what he wanted from a government agency; sometimes he was said to be “holding the unemployed hostage to his libertarian ideology” or “holding a state agency hostage for political gain.” The State actually combined these two images in one of its editorials: “You do not play chicken with the lives of 77,000 laid-off citizens, holding them hostage for your own political purposes.” No, I supposed, you do not.

In fact, everyone else was pretty much bundled up in winter coats, scarves, and the like (although in Li’s case the heavy clothing was less functional and more of an accessory to make sure he fit in). I, on the other hand, in my mid- length leather jacket, had not dressed as warmly as the others, but I didn’t have to. With the ability to raise my core body temperature, I could have walked through a blizzard in a pair of swimming trunks and been fine. Like Li, however, it was important that I keep up appearances, so I chose to go out dressed somewhat appropriately for the weather rather than as a member of the local Polar Bear Club.

They spent three more long days in the whitened mountain ash trees on the whitened bay. Tatiana baked pies in Nellie’s big kitchen. Alexander read all the papers and magazines from stem to stern and talked post-war politics to Tatiana and Jimmy, and even to indifferent Nellie. In Nellie’s potato fields, Alexander built snowmen for Anthony. After the pies were in the oven, Tatiana came out of the house and saw six snowmen arrayed like soldiers from big to little. She tutted, rolled her eyes and dragged Anthony away to fall down and make angels in the snow instead. They made thirty of them, all in a row, arrayed like soldiers. On the third night of winter, Anthony was in their bed restfully asleep, and they were wide awake. Alexander was rubbing her bare buttocks under her gown. The only window in their room was blizzarded over. She assumed the blue moon was shining beyond. His hands were becoming very insistent. Alexander moved one of the blankets onto the floor, silently; moved her onto the blanket, silently; laid her flat onto her stomach, silently, and made love to her in stealth like they were doughboys on the ground, crawling to the frontline, his belly to her back, keeping her in a straight line, completely covering her tiny frame with his body, clasping her wrists above her head with one hand. As he confined her, he was kissing her shoulders, and the back of her neck, and her jawline, and when she turned her face to him, he kissed her lips, his free hand roaming over her legs and ribs while he moved deep and slow! amazing enough by itself, but even more amazingly he turned her to him to finish, still restraining her arms above her head, and even made a brief noise not just a raw exhale at the feverish end...and then they lay still, under the blankets, and Tatiana started to cry underneath him, and he said shh, shh, come on, but didn’t instantly move off her, like usual. “I’m so afraid,” she whispered. “Of what?” “Of everything. Of you.” He said nothing. She said, “So you want to get the heck out of here?” “Oh, God. I thought you’d never ask.” “Where do you think you’re going?” Jimmy asked when he saw them packing up the next morning. “We’re leaving,” Alexander replied. “Well, you know what they say,” Jim said. “Man proposes and God disposes. The bridge over Deer Isle is iced over. Hasn’t been plowed in weeks and won’t be. Nowhere to go until the snow melts.” “And when do you think that might be?” “April,” Jimmy said, and both he and Nellie laughed. Jimmy hugged her with his one good arm and Nellie, gazing brightly at him, didn’t look as if she cared that he had just the one. Tatiana and Alexander glanced at each other. April! He said to Jim, “You know what, we’ll take our chances.” Tatiana started to speak up, started to say, “Maybe they’re right—” and Alexander fixed her with such a stare that she instantly shut up, ashamed of questioning him in front of other people, and hurried on with the packing. They said goodbye to a regretful Jimmy and Nellie, said goodbye to Stonington and took their Nomad Deluxe across Deer Isle onto the mainland. In this one instant, man disposed. The bridge had been kept clear by the snow crews on Deer Isle. Because if the bridge was iced over, no one could get any produce shipments to the people in Stonington. “What a country,” said Alexander, as he drove out onto the mainland and south.

You feel like you dropped the tent." "What tent?" "A tent you were carrying through winter drifts taht wasn't even yours. And you didn't feel the weight until the strap broke and it fell into the snow. You look back, and it's a broken thing with cracked poles and worn hides. You were only carrying it because you needed shelter in case the blizzard came. But there was no blizzard. And once it's gone, it's easy to get through the snow by yourself.

winter had been long and hard. The

Camden in the winter of 1954 was a bleak place. It is difficult to see it this way if you’ve only been there in the summer, but most of Maine can be dismal, especially along the coast, during the long nights and short days. Once the colorful leaves have fallen from the majestic maple trees, and the last tourist has gone home, things become grim. So it was, during that cold January day, when I was on the road hoping to get a ride to New Jersey. On the radio, the weather forecasters predicted an overnight blizzard, but here it was only late afternoon and snow was already accumulating on the road. This would be my last opportunity to get home to see my family and friends, before cruising back on down to the Caribbean. I had really hoped to get an earlier start, to get far enough south to miss the brunt of the storm. Maine is known for this kind of weather, and the snowplows and sanders were ready. In fact, I didn’t see many other vehicles on the road any longer. Schools had let out early and most businesses were closed in anticipation of the storm. My last ride dropped me off in Belfast, telling me that he was trying to get as far as Augusta, before State Road 3 became impassable. Standing alongside the two-lane coastal highway with darkness not far off, I was half thinking that I should turn back. My mind was made up for me when I stepped back off the road, making room for a big State DOT dump truck with a huge yellow snowplow. His airbrakes wheezed as he braked, coming to a stop, at the same time lifting his plow to keep from burying me. The driver couldn’t believe that I was out hitchhiking in a blizzard. This kind of weather in Maine is no joke! The driver told me that the year before a body had been found under a snow bank during the spring thaw. Never mind, I was invincible and nothing like that could happen to me, or so I thought. He got me as far as Camden and suggested that I get a room. “This storm is only going to get worse,” he cautioned as I got off. I waved as he drove off. Nevertheless, still hoping that things would improve, I was determined to continue…

I can hear the darkness. It is like a breeze on a frigid winter's night that rattles the leafless branches. It is like the cold that travels through your open mouth and down your throat, a frozen kiss stealing your breath. It is like a blizzard that swallows you in its swiftness, blinding behind and before, and side to side. Darkness is winter. It is the end. It is death.

He had promised to love her until the tips of his fingers turned stiff and black but now, as they lay together in a tent somewhere in the Antarctic in the depths of winter, a blizzard raging outside, he was fast reconsidering.

large charcuterie boards featuring juicy grapes, slabs of camembert, various meats, brie, crackers, dates and slices of cucumber and mixed nuts.

We have glacier goblins and frost giants. Ice serpents. Polar tempests, a sort of living winter tornado. The occasional wendigo, an absolutely terrifying creature that lived in the most secluded depths of the polar forests.

Winter feared the Spring, and thus the blizzard was created as a product of Winter’s intense wrath, and as a testament to Winter’s never-ending war with Spring. They bid over the fate of the Earth, dividing the animals and setting a path of both destruction and evolution.

The Five Stages of IVF The boy stands in our garden holding all of the snow. He can't be a snowman, I insist. He is far too young for frostbite. He might be mythic. Or prophetic. Did anyone see him arrive? The snowboy's eyes are kingfishers. Blazing countries we would like to visit. Behind him a squirrel is stealing all of the food. Bending over backwards- winter olympics. The young boy does not blink. Cradling his snow globe. The whole world is a blizzard. We refuse to talk of snow babies incubating in fables. How their fingerprints are the scattered names of endangered species. Instead, we dip our palms in icing sugar and press our mouths to the window. Our longings skitter around the kitchen like so much white noise.

The road clung to the spine of the ridge, sidewinding in sinuous loops toward the blue smokes of Smoky Mountain where deposits of coal, ignited by lightning some long-gone summer afternoon a thousand—ten thousand?—years before, smoldered beneath the surface of the mountain’s shoulders. There seemed to be no pursuit. But why should there be? They hadn’t done anything wrong. So far they had done everything right. Down on the alkali flats where only saltbush, cholla and snakeweed grew, they met a small herd of baldface cows ambling up to the higher country. Beef on the hoof, looking for trouble. What Smith liked to call “slow elk,” regarding them with satisfaction as a reliable outdoor meat supply in hard times. How did they survive, these wasteland cattle? It was these cattle which had created the wasteland. Hayduke and Smith dallied several times to get out the old pliers and cut fence. “You can’t never go wrong cuttin’ fence,” Smith would say. “Especially sheep fence.” (Clunk!) “But cow fence too. Any fence.” “Who invented barbed wire anyhow?” Hayduke asked. (Plunk!) “It was a man named J. F. Glidden done it; took out his patent back in 1874.” An immediate success, that barbwire. Now the antelope die by the thousands, the bighorn sheep perish by the hundreds every winter from Alberta down to Arizona, because fencing cuts off their escape from blizzard and drought. And coyotes too, and golden eagles, and peasant soldiers on the coils of concertina wire, victims of the same fat evil the wide world over, hang dead on the barbed and tetanous steel. “You can’t never go wrong cuttin’ fence,” repeated Smith, warming to his task. (Pling!) “Always cut fence. That’s the law west of the hundredth meridian. East of that don’t matter none. Back there it’s all lost anyhow. But west, cut fence.” (Plang!)

OH, NIETZSCHE The last Christmas Eve of the nineteenth century was very cold Piercing winds and snow stuffed themselves into the cracks of every door and window As professors of philosophy gathered in the Golden Hall Their nonsense and hollow academic jargon were winning applause Feeling a chill, professors furrowed their brows And refined ladies unconsciously pulled their collars closed No one paid attention to the chill, no one even responded But the howling wind outside the window Swept across Europe’s wide sky Outside, Nietzsche was wandering around in the wilderness His thoughts were accompanied by the snowy winds and howls of wolves In this frozen world his thoughts shed their skin again and again Like a bloody struggle to be free of incorporeal chains He relentlessly pursued the truth No one could understand his eccentric and arrogant disposition No one could answer his disdain for this world For only a blizzard of manuscripts accompanied him Weathered by a tormenting disease Nietzsche bitterly suffered from his solitary meditation His discontent with thoughts surged like gales blowing the heavy snow Sweeping the sky and earth with a wild fervor What a pure yet brutal world At that moment the bells of a new century were ringing The generation of heroes Nietzsche called “supermen” From “Martin Eden” penned by Jack London To the old man who went fishing with Hemingway Have already shocked the whole world Through so many sleepless nights he endured the torture of disease Yet nurtured the poetic longing of solitude and indifference An infant thought undergoes the trauma of birth To finally cry out in an earth-shattering voice Nietzsche, before the sunrise changed the world The entire sky shimmered with your incandescent thoughts The nearly extinguished candle was burning your final passion Nietzsche, oh Nietzsche, let us walk on together

In winter we often go down to the cellar and contemplate the art gallery. When a blizzard is howling outside is the best time.

The Hibernal Realm by Stewart Stafford The compass knows not which way to go, And Life's submerged in winter's snow, The path before us fit for sleds, Dusted with a blizzard's web. Clear a path and the light the way, And get us through to break of day, Step through the ice-encrusted door, That shows the way to the dawn thaw. Stay too long in the hibernal realm, And the chill begins to overwhelm, Sit, rest, and take respite, And become at one with fading light. See The Winter King and then bow down, With frostbite smile and holly crown, Icicle sceptre makes the heartbeat slow, Lonely as the North wind blows. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.

La cachucha, is that for us, maestro? Will it be danced across the tottering floorboards of the cavaliers' wing, between cramped walls, blackened with smoke and greasy with grime, under its low ceiling? Curse you, the way you play! La cachucha, is that for us, for us cavaliers? Outside the snowstorm howls. Do you mean to teach the snowflakes to dance in rhythm, are you playing for the light-footed children of the blizzard? Female bodies, which tremble under the pulse beat of hot blood, small sooty hands, which have thrown aside the cooking pot to grasp the castanets, naked feet under tucked-up skirts, yard coated with flakes of marble, crouching gypsies with bagpipe and tambourine, Moorish arcades, moonlight and black eyes, do you have those, maestro? If not, let the fiddle rest! Cavaliers are drying their wet clothes by the fire. Should they swirl around in their tall boots with iron-shod heels and thumb-thick soles? They have waded through the ell-deep snow the whole day to reach the bear's winter lair. Do you think they should dance in their wet, steaming homespun clothes, with the shaggy bruin as a partner? Evening sky, glittering with stars, red roses in dark female hair, tormenting sweetness in the evening air, untaught grave in the movements, love rising out of the earth, raining from the sky, hovering in the air, do you have this, maestro? If not, why force us to long for such things? Cruelest of men, are you sounding the attack for a tethered warhorse? Rutger von Orneclou is lying in his bed, imprisoned by gout pains. Spare him the torment of sweet memories, maestro! He too has worn a sombrero and a gaudy hairnet, he too has owned a velvet jacket and a sash with a dagger tucked in it. Spare old Orneclou, maestro!

You understand how it is here, the weather?’ The elderly Norwegian in a Charlie Brown earflap hat was the first pedestrian I had encountered since leaving Kirkenes, a little port hunkered pluckily up in Europe’s furthest top-right corner. On his third and loudest attempt, he had at last penetrated a howling blizzard and the many thermal layers that swaddled my head. It was a disappointing response to my own snood-muffled enquiry: the distance to Näätämö, across the border in Finland, the European Union’s northernmost settlement and the only place for hours around that offered an overnight alternative to a hunched and lonely death in the sub-Polar darkness. My understanding of how it was there, the weather, had, I felt, been pretty solid for a graduate from the No Shit Sherlock School of Climate Studies: our conversation was taking place 400km above the Arctic Circle, in winter. Nonetheless, this knowledge base had broadened memorably over the previous eighteen hours, and in ways that left the tiny exposed parts of my face encrusted with frozen tears of pain and terror. I nodded feebly, expending around 8 per cent of my physical reserves. ‘So why you are WITH BICYCLE?

It was snowing when I got off the bus at Flax Hill. Not quite regular snowfall, not exactly a blizzard. This is how it was: The snow came down heavily, settled for about a minute, then the wind moved it - more rolled it, really - onto another target. One minute you were covered in snow, then it sped off sideways, as if a brisk, invisible giant had taken pity and brushed you down.

Oh my, aren't we going to have fun?" Sarah remarked sarcastically as she quickly pulled the covers over herself. A weak sweat covered her body and her arms trembled, feeling no stronger than wet wax. With a weary sigh, she lay down beside her baby. "Imagine staying here for the winter with such a cheery soul." Thaddeus returned from his sink with a cup of cold water. He glared at her when he saw her trembling and held the cup to her lips himself. "If you were looking for cheery, lady, you shouldn't have come here." "I didn't come here," she snapped angrily, almost choking on a mouthful of water. "You brought me." "Would you rather I left you in a blizzard?" "I'd rather, since we're stuck here together, you spoke civilly and treated me with a measure of kindness." "Yeah...well, we all want things we can't have.

Camden in the winter of 1954 was a bleak place. It is difficult to see it this way if you’ve only been there in the summer, but most of Maine can be dismal, especially along the coast, during the long nights and short days. Once the colorful leaves have fallen from the majestic maple trees, and the last tourist has gone home, things become grim. So it was, during that cold January day, when I was on the road hoping to get a ride to New Jersey. On the radio, the weather forecasters predicted an overnight blizzard, but here it was only late afternoon and snow was already accumulating on the road. This would be my last opportunity to get home to see my family and friends, before cruising back on down to the Caribbean. I had really hoped to get an earlier start, to get far enough south to miss the brunt of the storm. Maine is known for this kind of weather, and the snowplows and sanders were ready. In fact, I didn’t see many other vehicles on the road any longer. Schools had let out early and most businesses were closed in anticipation of the storm. My last ride dropped me off in Belfast, telling me that he was trying to get as far as Augusta, before State Road 3 became impassable. Standing alongside the two-lane coastal highway with darkness not far off, I was half thinking that I should turn back. My mind was made up for me when I stepped back off the road, making room for a big State DOT dump truck with a huge yellow snowplow. His airbrakes wheezed as he braked, coming to a stop, at the same time lifting his plow to keep from burying me. The driver couldn’t believe that I was out hitchhiking in a blizzard. This kind of weather in Maine is no joke! The driver told me that the year before a body had been found under a snow bank during the spring thaw. Never mind, I was invincible and nothing like that could happen to me, or so I thought. He got me as far as Camden and suggested that I get a room. “This storm is only going to get worse,” he cautioned as I got off. I waved as he drove off. Nevertheless, still hoping that things would improve, I was determined to continue.

We got a bad case of head lice that winter and Aunt Cooter went berserk. Remember that? She was running from room to room, crying out about seeing Jesus up on high and trying to takeher clothes off — she was yelling, 'I want to put on the new raiment! Put away this old raiment, put on the new raiment!' Boy, that got tiresome real fast. We kept wrapping her up in sheets and she kept ripping them off. She'd been weak and puny for years but suddenly she had strength in her arms. It happens when people go berserk. I read that somewhere. We just ran out of patience. We threatened to put her in the loony bin but she was seeing Jesus so it didn't matter to her. Finally we had to give her a tranquilizer and I guess we overtranquilized her because she died. But she went quietly in her sleep, which was how she always wanted to go. And she saw Jesus, so that must have been a comfort. It was too cold to bury her right away, the ground was frozen so hard. They were going to use dynamite but the families of other dead people objected to that, so we just put her in the tool shed until spring. Stood her up and leaned her against the lumber pile.

THE MYSTERY SERIES This mystery adventure series set in 1950’s UK will delight children of all ages. ~*~*~ Upcoming/New Release Books: The Mystery of Danger Island (April 9, 2023) Five Minute Mysteries Volume 2 (June 4, 2023) The Mystery of King Kong (Oct 15, 2023) The Mystery of the Siberian Fortress (Dec 17, 2023) ~ Summer Holidays: The Mystery of Smugglers Cove The Mystery of the Missing Money The Mystery of the Missing Gnomes The Mystery of Adventure Island The Mystery of the Mysterious Man The Mystery of the Strange Notebook The Mystery of Hidden Valley ~ Winter Holidays: The Mystery of Claw Mountain The Mystery of the Golden Elephant The Mystery of the Red Balloon The Mystery of the Golden Dragons The Mystery of the Howling Dog The Mystery of the Hidden Suitcase The Mystery of Treasure Island ~ Easter Holidays: The Mystery of Four Towers The Mystery of the Burning Plane The Mystery of the Russian Spy The Mystery of Ghost Island The Mystery of the Perfect Thief The Mystery of the Underwater Car The Mystery of the Crown Jewels ~ Summer Holidays: The Mystery of the Amphibious Jeep The Mystery of the Escaped Prisoner The Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle The Mystery of the Runaway King The Mystery of the Secret Lake The Mystery of Crocodile Island The Mystery of the Invisible Woman ~ Winter Holidays: The Mystery of the Secret Hideout The Mystery of the Fake President The Mystery of the Double Agent The Mystery of the Perfect Impostor The Mystery of the Christmas Spy ~ Easter Holidays: The Mystery of Danger Island The Mystery of King Kong The Mystery of the Siberian Fortress ~ Mystery Series (Worldwide Adventures): International Spy and Midnight Intruder Haunted Lighthouse and Blizzard Peak ~ Mystery Series (Solve It Yourself Mysteries): Five Minute Mysteries Volume 1 Five Minute Mysteries Volume 2 ~ Mystery Series (Choose Your Own Way): Danger in Monrovia Lost in the Bermuda Triangle Escape from Sylvania ~ Mystery Series (Free Short Story): The Mystery of Santa Claus ~ Interactive Fiction: Earthquake Outer Space ~ Mystery Series Box Set: The Mystery Series Collection (Short Stories 1-4) The Mystery Series Collection (Short Stories 5-8) The Mystery Series Collection (Short Stories 9-12) The Mystery Series Collection (Books 1-3) The Mystery Series Collection (Books 4-6) The Mystery Series Collection (Books 7-9) The Mystery Series Collection (Books 10-12) The Mystery Series Collection (Books 13-15) The Mystery Series Collection (Books 16-18) The Mystery Series Collection (Books 1-10) (Includes Exclusive Short Story)

Ya shouldn’t expect too much though, princess.” He leaned into her, a hint of warning in his voice. “Ya won’t be able to enjoy it for long anyway. Winter’s just ‘round the corner, and the first snow won’t be long in comin’. Believe me, old man winter out here really packs a punch. Such a goddamn blizzard’s a fuckin’ unpleasant thing.” He lifted one corner of his mouth in a crooked, mean smile. “This country’s full of nasty surprises.” She returned his gaze, unperturbed. “Are you done?

THE WINTER OF 1886–87 WAS TERRIBLE. EVERY GODDAMN history of the high plains says so. There were great stocks of cattle on overgrazed land during the droughty summer. Early wet snow froze hard so the cattle could not break through the crust to the grass. Blizzards and freeze-eye cold followed, the gant bodies of cattle piling up in draws and coulees.

That day amidst the blizzard, Invigilator A slowly stood up. He thought, he had seen a very bright and passionate person. Just relying on this, he felt that he could endure through this harsh, cold winter.