Here comes winter again.

No, that's not true, old man winter never left. We might not see him, but he's hanging around to spring on us with shivering temperatures or ice and snow. And oh, don't forget the rain. No way to do that unless we slept the last couple of weeks. As bad as that was, the predictions for this weekend are much worse. You'll know if the weather prognosticators got it right by the time this is published. But as this is written early Friday, it sure looks as if they did.

Hope you're staying dry and warm. And that you stocked up on toilet paper and milk before the bad weather hit. (If it did.) There are two things sure to happen with such a forecast; people buy an abundant supply of the aforementioned items and school officials must decide whether or not our youngsters will be going to school.

It is easily seen that the first one is true. You don't have to go into the stores to see it, a drive by their parking lots offers proof aplenty.
My philosophy of shopping boils down to one word; don't. OK, I know that's a contraction, two words made into one, but it looks like one word to me.

In a happy coincidence for my family, wife Helen's shopping philosophy is the polar opposite of mine; she loves it. That works fine; she gets to do something she really likes and I get to not do something I dislike. And we can still stock up on toilet paper and milk.

She's planning to do that today. Now she'll have to take my truck, she's never driven it, but she's gotta go. The weatherman says so. Oops, pardon me, I suppose the proper word is weatherperson!
She has to take the truck because she ran over a big old piece of metal on her way home yesterday and completely ruined a tire on her van.

Two kind young men put the spare on the van and made sure it was properly inflated. And refused to take any pay. Just an act of kindness typical of our good Monroe County people. I don't know their names, but want to say this; thank you, men.

That spare tire is one of the temporary types, they call 'em compact, the ones manufacturers put in cars to save room. Truth is, they do it to save money, not ours but theirs.
So Helen will drive the truck to stock up on necessities before the predicted storm while I take the van to replace the tire. Oh, I know that's shopping too, but hanging around a tire shop is nothing like being elbowed and jostled by panicked crowds rushing to buy toilet paper and milk.

As for our school officials and their decision as to whether to call off school, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. There's just no way to please everyone when you make such a decision.
That burden falls directly on the shoulders of our director of schools, Mike Lowry. But any good administrator relies on the input of others before making an important decision, and I'll bet you next month's toilet paper and milk money Mr. Lowry does just that. Still, he's the man who must decide.
There's one more thing I'll bet that money on; his final decision will be what he deems is safest for our school children. Washington oughta be taking lessons from him.

taylormadetalk@yahoo.com