A lot of burning questions are in the news these days. War with Iraq. North Korea. Tax cuts. Who’ll win the Superbowl? But on waking up to a few inches of snow Thursday, TownDock.net staffers had another topic in mind. And so, they headed out for morning coffee and to conduct a poll:

"Snow. Are ya for it or against it?"

From the outset, we should say it was extremely unscientific.

For one, we’d hoped to get a wide sampling, but few businesses were open. In fact, the only door we could find open at 7:30 was Croakertown’s coffee shop. We hadn’t even brushed the snow off our clothes when Ken O’Neill caught the glimmer of childlike glee in our faces and without even being asked, gave us our first sampling, "Not spent much time in it have you? Not out working in it...right?"

Ken O'Neill

Before moving to Oriental and taking this corner seat at the coffee shop, Ken worked with the New York Fire Department and that shaped his take of snow. "Firemen hate snow," he said, "Try walking along a roof when it’s snowy and icy." And imagine, he said, that you’re carrying gear. He spoke of shoveling vast amounts of snow on a firemen-training island in the East River. Ken, it was clear, would be a tough sell about the poetic beauty of snow.

Ron Stevens

Echoing Ken was Ron Stevens who seemed beyond glum as the white piled up outside the door. "I gave away my snow shovel when I moved here," which was back in August. "The Chamber of Commerce didn’t say anything about this!"

As with Ken, the line of work Ron retired from may have also shaped his attitude toward show. Instead of icy roofs, though, he confronted whiny kids. Ron had been a principal in New Jersey and when it started snowing he says, "kids began to accost you" asking when school was going to let out. "God, they were incessant! It was constant the way they’d harass you!"

And Ron recalls that in his childhood in Erie, PA (where snow was incessant) snow days off from school meant he and his brother had to shovel the driveway.
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But Ken and Ron were in the minority among those in the Croakertown Snow Poll. Ken offered the view that those not exposed to snow much (i.e.: southerners) thought it was fun more so than did those who had more experience with it. However, our poll did not bear that out. We found a lot of snow longing….

Lori Wagoner

Lori Wagoner said she ‘absolutely, positively loved snow.’ From the time she was nine until she was 18 Lori lived in Switzerland where, she says, the schools "never had snow days. And we did trudge through deep snow." (Lori was unwilling to exaggerate the story– feet deep, miles trudged -- though we did give her the opportunity) That exposure to snow – and living and working through it -- may explain why the coffee shop Lori runs at Croakertown was one of the few businesses opened Thursday morning.

Kay & Andy Polo

Andy Polo and his wife Kay were practically walking a few inches off the snow splattered floor as they noted that the weather forecasts had the snowstorm "centered right over where we are" and that more than a few inches were predicted. "It could snow every day for me!" Andy said. The Polos are from New Jersey and part of Andy’s enthusiasm is rooted in his firmly held belief that back up in the Northeast falling snow cleansed the air of all the pollutants.

Paul Olsen

Paul Olson gave the snow a thumbs up too. A native of Wisconsin, who grew up near the coldest NFL franchise in the country, Paul did allow that he would be satisfied with one big snowstorm per year.

Into this conversation about snow, Earl Evens offered a more reflective reason for favoring the white stuff. Noting that there’s a fair bit of repetition in discussions here, he welcomed the snow because, "it gives everyone something new to talk about." Earl, a veteran of NJ and Omaha winters, demurred in saying exactly what topics he’d tired of. Instead, he nodded toward the outdoors, "Look, its falling sideways now."

When one snow enthusiast suggested that this was preferable to the heat of August, Ken O’Neill shook his head. While he did recall a youth spent sledding on the hills of Staten Island, snow seemed out of place to him in Oriental. "I moved here," he said, "so I could wear a T-shirt, shorts and deck shoes." He went on to state the finer points of shoveling and litigation in NY where, he said, if you shovel your sidewalk and someone falls, you can be held liable, whereas if you don’t shovel and they fall, it’s an act of God.

The polling continued.

Snow covered Patty

Patty Rosencrantz came in to the coffeehouse with more snow on her coat than others. She was fresh from a spill in front of the Post Office. Still, she liked the snow, laughing that it gave her a chance to air out the scarf that had been in storage since she moved from Connecticut.

Joe Wakefield, Patty Rosencrantz

Patty also offered the tip of using the snow to clean rugs; "We’d throw rugs upside down in to the snow, especially Oriental and hooked rugs." Which may explain why you may see some rugs in the parking lot at her Hodge Podge bookstore today…

Joe Wakefield who started out in the UK and lived in Norway for a time cast another vote in favor of snow. Joe says he liked it for the ‘mental attitude’ it brought. "You deal with it," he said.

Another way of dealing with the snowy morning is to treat it like any other, which is what Tom Smith did. "I got halfway here on my bike," he said, "but had to turn back". The bike does have some hi-tech gears, but Tom thought that the two-wheel drive -- and lack of snow tires -- would be no match for the mounting layers of snow. A Cleveland native, Tom was a snow supporter, and says he even arranged some business so he would be sure to be home in Oriental when the snows started.

Charles Mozelle

Outside in the parking lot of Croakertown, we ran across on Oriental resident who was dealing with it. Charles Mozelle was on his way home from Village Hardware where he’d just purchased a pair of Pamlico Reeboks, the white boots fishermen wear which also provide some protection from the half foot of snow on the ground.




And back inside Croakertown’s coffee shop, Ken O’Neill still wasn’t convinced that snow and Oriental should be heard in the same sentence. He did allow that it brought people together. But then he said, so do hurricanes.

OK, we gotta admit - Gallup Poll polling techniques were not used. Almost all of the respondents were natives of colder climes - that may have skewed the results. Further, the kind of poeple that would show up at 7:30am in a driving snow tends to be a self-selecting group. In the interests of a more thorough poll, we welcome your views on snow.. and as always your comments. Let us know at letters@towndock.net.