Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Hanging Out With Juno

Hanging Out With Juno

Last updated on: January 22, 2016 at 7:30 am by Vance Morgan

Hanging Out With Juno 2016-01-22T07:30:19-04:00 Vance Morgan

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In anticipation of what is likely to be our first real snow of the winter tonight and tomorrow, I’m remembering a visit from a very nasty lady exactly a year ago . . .

My usual reaction as a seasoned New Englander to panicked reports of the next big “Snowpocalypse” event coming our way is “whatever.” So when I heard on the local NPR weather update last Saturday as it snowed a couple of sloppy inches that a “MAJOR SNOW EVENT” was coming our way late Monday night into Tuesday, I took it with several grains of salt. How many times in my life have the prognosticators predicted a “historic weather event,” only to have it embarrassingly fizzle into little or nothing when the appointed time comes? Except, of course, that weather experts appear to be immune to embarrassment or even the ability to say “we were wrong.” They just keep on predicting the worst in the blind hope that sometime they might actually be right.

But a few things indicated that this time might be different. First, the predictions from various venues were remarkably similar (I heard later that this is because they were using a new model—the American model—for the first time rather than the usual European one. Makes sense). It will start on Monday night, go straight through Tuesday, the wind will be 40-50 miles per hour, 18-24 inches are predicted, and the Providence-Boston area is the bull’s-eye. No waffling, no saying that “the amounts will range from one inch to fifty depending on how the storm tracks,” no qualifications such as “it might turn out to be all rain.” Just “you’re in for a serious weather ass-kicking, Providence.” Second, although I despise the Weather Channel’s insistence that even the most minor weather event must be named, I took notice when I heard that the impending storm had been named Juno. The late January storm last year, named Janus, was bad enough. But everyone knows that Juno/Hera was a bitch. She was manipulative, nasty, arbitrary, and generally not easy to get along with. I know, the fact that her husband Jupiter/Zeus was a serial cheater who slept at the drop of a hat with semi-divine and mortal women in forms ranging from a swan or bull to a shower of gold probably helps explain Juno/Hera’s general bad attitude. But maybe Jupiter/Zeus’ straying activities had something to do with the fact that he couldn’t stand being around his wife. Just saying.

For a teacher, especially early in a new semester, rumored weather cancellations of classes are a pain in the ass. Just as the students do, the faculty claims to be excited about the prospect of an unexpected “day off”—on Sunday I posted on Facebook that I was thoroughly annoyed that the promised storm was coming Monday night through Tuesday. Given that Tuesday is the day this semester that I am not in class, I wanted to know why the storm couldn’t be scheduled for Wednesday, by far my heaviest teaching day of the week. What is the point of cancelled classes on a day when I have no classes? But in truth, what I was really worried about was that if Juno turned out to be as bad-ass as predicted, the odds were high that both Tuesday and Wednesday classes would be cancelled. As I chatted with colleagues Monday about the incoming weather event, we privately agreed that having to retool and revise the syllabus in the wake of cancelled classes was a far greater pain than any benefit received from getting to sleep an extra hour or two because of a snow day. I much prefer snow events on the weekend (except when they cancel church on a Sunday that I am scheduled to play the organ—this happened once last winter). In short, people need to check with me before they plan unusual weather.

Jeanne and I decided to park our car in the underground parking lot on campus to spare our Hyundai Eva (named after Adolf Hitler’s girlfriend—a long story) getting snowed and blown on and us the annoyance of digging her out of six-foot drifts. The snow started late Monday afternoon, intensified in the evening, hit hard in the middle of the night, and was going strong when I woke up at my usual 5:15—just as the prognosticators said it would. Good for them—even a broken clock is right twice every twenty-four hours. Looking out the window I was reminded of my days in Laramie in the eighties where it the wind was so strong during a winter storm that it snowed sideways. It was impossible to tell how much it had actually snowed; due to drifting we had received anywhere from nothing to five feet of the stuff, depending on where I looked. I know from growing up in Vermont that one should never wait until a storm ends to start shoveling—better to shovel 6-8 inches several times than three feet once. But not this time—trying to shovel while Juno was still in Rhode Island would have been as effective as spitting into a hurricane.

On Tuesday I watched the drifts pile higher and higher, particularly amused when I discovered that there were two feet of snow drifted tight against the back door as well as a larger four- or five-foot drift between that door and the snow shovels six feet away that we had wisely moved from the garage to the back patio to make them easy to grab when the storm was over. This happened at about the same time I learned that classes were also cancelled for Wednesday, throwing all three of my syllabi into complete disarray. And who said that living in New England during the winter is not fun? Jeanne and I did zero shoveling on Tuesday, watched episodes four through nine of Season Five of Downton Abbey (we got the whole thing in DVD a couple of days ago because Jeanne started throwing a few monthly bucks WGBH-PBS’s way a few weeks ago), I drank Balvenie, and we slept well.

Wednesday was less fun because the snow shoveling staff failed to show up and we had to do it ourselves. According to a Facebook acquaintance the official snowfall in Providence from Juno was 19.5 inches (and we know that Facebook is always right), but because of tightly packed three- to four-foot drifts from top to bottom of our driveway, it shoveled like a lot more. With impeccable timing, just as we were close to finished our neighbor Al, with whom we share a driveway, said that he was going to be borrowing a friend’s snowblower and would have been happy to do our side with it. Actually Al’s a sweetheart and came back with it in time to blow out the end of our drive where the plow had deposited five feet worth of cement-heavy material. Later today I’ll be retrieving our car from the campus lot and parking it in our shoveled driveway just in time for the plow to pile a few feet more of snow in the end as it makes a sweep pushing the banks back in the middle of the night.

Strangely enough, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love New England, including the storms, and snow emergencies bring out the Good Samaritan best in everyone. Al cleared out the end of our driveway, we kicked in $10 to some enterprising youngsters to shovel out our neighbor across the street when she didn’t have enough cash on hand, and everyone is in a “pay it forward” mood. Except the fool who blew his horn impatiently for ten minutes as he sat behind an oil truck delivering oil to our elderly neighbor on the other side whose tank had run dry. I hope Winter Storm Javier dumps five feet on him next January.

Previous Post

January 20, 2016

Educating the Uneducated

Next Post

January 25, 2016 Give Us Barabbas

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Advent AI Angels Artificial intelligence atheism attention baptism Baptists beauty belief Benedictines Bible bicycling Big Bird books Bovina Camaldoli hermitage Canada Catholicism cats certainty change Christianity Christmas Collegeville Covid-19 creativity Development of Western Civilization dogs doubt Easter Enneagram Epiphany Episcopal ethics Eucharist evil extroverts Facebook faith family fear flowers forgiveness freedom friends God goodness grace happiness heaven hell history Holy Spirit Holy Week hope human nature humility humor idolatry incarnation introverts irreverence Islam Jeanne Jesus Joe Biden joy Judaism justice Kamala Harris knowledge Lent listen literature liturgy love Marsue Memorial Day miracles movies music mystery mythology NPR Old Testament optimism paradox peace Penguins philosophy piano podcast politics power prayer Protestantism Providence College Religion Rhode Island sabbatical sacrament science seeing silence Simone Weil Socrates soul sports St. John's College stories suffering tattoo teaching technology television theology thinking time tolerance transcendence travel trees trust truth Uncategorized Vermont wisdom wonder writing

Select a Month May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz