We're Number 3!!! Can we go higher?

So much for the spring-like weekend!

Snowfall on the marquee?

We got hit with a massive late-winter snowstorm (officially 3.6 inches, but some parts of the metro area experienced with nearly double that) that put the Chicago-area snowfall total this winter to just over 79 inches.

THAT OFFICIALLY MAKES the winter of 2013-14 the third-most when it comes to snowfall in the amount of time that records have been kept.

This is in March, where I'll admit I often tune my television to the MLB-TV channel to catch parts of spring training baseball games. Not that I care who wins these exhibitions filled with minor leaguers delusional enough to think they can make the "big club" this spring.

It's more because I like to see that there's a place where the weather is sunny and clear and winter snow isn't much of a concern.

But as I saw pointed out on the Weather Channel Wednesday morning, the second-most amount of snow for a Chicago winter was that one of 1978-79 (I was in junior high school back then). With just over 82 inches.

ARE WE GOING to top that mark? Could we become Number Two. Could we get another blast (we'd need roughly 10 more inches) that would make us Number One in something?

For the record, winter has exactly one more week to go. Or so the calendar says. Because March 20 is the point at which the planet Earth reaches the point in its rotation that the northern hemisphere is too far along for there to be much more winter weather.

Although those of us who have lived here our entire lives know it's not unheard of for there to be an early April snowfall. Who's to say we couldn't get a few more inches?

Snow taller than MJ? But he could leap it

This is one record that I'm sure nobody wants to see surpassed. We'd be more than content to have this winter be Number Three. Heck, we'd have been happy if it could have remained Number Four!

PERSONALLY, I COULD have done without the Wednesday morning sight of the aforementioned Weather Channel having one of their reporter-types standing out on State Street next to a pile of pizza boxes (deep dish, of course) piled up to 79 inches high.

Taller than the reporter-type (who hit as many cliches as possible by doing her broadcast standup in front of the Chicago Theater with its famed marquee) herself.

All she would have had to do was point out that the official snowfall (as measured at O'Hare International Airport) is about an inch taller than the famed Michael Jordan himself.

Then again, she may be the type who believes that basketball was invented by LeBron James.

PERSONALLY, I FEEL fortunate about this latest storm.

I didn't have to be anyplace Tuesday night when the storm started. By the time I had to leave on Wednesday, the official winter storm warning was over and assorted municipal public works crews had cleared the streets to the point where they were as passable as they could hope to be.

I just had to dodge idiot drivers who just don't seem to get that weather impacts the way one ought to drive.

This particular winter is one I will not forget. For all I know, some three or four decades from now I'll be old and decrepit and perhaps suffering from Alzheimer's Disease without a clue about who I am or anything I ever did -- but I'll be rambling on and on about how cold and sloppy it has been the past few months.

NOTABLE BECAUSE I usually don't get bothered by the cold temperatures (I just put on another layer to keep warm). It is the snow and the slop it creates that bothers me more; in part because I detest having to shovel it -- I feel fortunate to have a landlord these days who is attentive to his property.

But the repeated days of the Arctic-like temperatures made life all the more complicated this season. It was cold enough to be notable that we weren't just in a typical 10-degree winter temperature. Twenty-below is not easily forgotten! It would be creation's great joke to give us one last burst of snow before finally ending for the year.

What are the chances of a significant snowfall on March 31 (a.k.a., Opening Day for the Chicago White Sox)? Reminiscent of the first home game the Toronto Blue Jays ever played in 1977.

I'm amazed Bill Veeck never thought of having his ball club playing in the snow in their  uniform shorts. That would have been a memorable stunt!

Remember the sight of the Sox in their Bill Veeck-era uniforms dodging snowflakes coming down during the ballgame? It's a good thing the ball club left their shorts behind that particular day.

-30-

Grateful to be cooped up indoors (for a change) on this messiest of New Year’s

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

But the fire is so delightful

And since we’ve got no place to go

Let it snow? Let it snow! Let it snow!                                    

  -0-

Whodathunk the New Year holiday season would have its own song. Even if it’s technically an appropriation of a Christmas holiday song.

My guide for coping with winter storm Hercules

For that first line from “Let it snow” was what came to my mind when I looked out the window to see the snowfall that has been falling off-and-on since Tuesday night.

AND I AM fortunate to be in a part of the Chicago metropolitan area that didn’t get hit with nearly a foot of snow. It has been just a couple of inches for me.

Reading and seeing the news reports of nearly a foot of snow in some parts of metro Chicago (which technically is a part of the “winter storm Hercules” that is sweeping itself this week across the northern part of the nation) made me feel grateful.

As was the fact that I am reduced these days to sporadic employment – often done from home.

I didn’t have to endure the commute to work that likely would have made me ridiculously late, and would have caused me to have to endure a rant from some boss who would want to blame everybody around him for inclement weather.

FOR THOSE OF you who had to put up with someone so nonsensical, I feel for you.

I wish I could say I spent the day watching this...

Although to be technical, I didn’t spend my Thursday cuddled up in front of a fire. Part of the day I spent in front of a laptop computer grinding out copy – including this very commentary you’re reading now.

I did have a television going for part of the day, tuned part of the day to The Weather Channel – where Stephanie Abrams, among others, convinced me that I was not alone in coping with heavy snowfall that will turn by week’s end to sub-zero-degree temperatures.

... instead of this

I also must confess to watching portions of a pair of cheesy films – “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Detroit Rock City,” which not only make me wish it were possible to buy back that portion of time in my life so I could use it more wisely but also makes me wonder if actors Kathleen Turner and Edward Furlong wish they could somehow erase those films from being a drag on their careers.

ALTHOUGH IF IT turns out that watching a part of two bad films was the low part of my Thursday, then I shouldn’t complain. It wasn’t any worse than the guy who was doing an awful “Harry Caray” impersonation on MLB-TV.

Besides, I’m sure there are people out there who had miserable days; problems aggravated all the more by the inclement weather.

I was fortunate enough to be able to use a miserable day to add to a general tone of relaxation in the final days before we all have to get back to work following New Year’s Day. And the leftover ham and potato salad was actually an enjoyable weather shut-in meal.

Which because the holiday came near the beginning of a week allows the most unadventurous of us to turn Christmas and New Year’s into a nearly two-week-long period of slothness.

Leftover ham and potato salad; the shut-in meal!

I ONLY HOPE they were relaxed enough that they were able to pull out the shovel on Thursday and clear their own sidewalks and other areas around their house – without thinking that such actions entitle them to a parking space in front of their house, even though the streets are public property!

Because aside from the nonsense concept of “dibs,” the last thing we need is more people who think they don’t have to do anything because Mother Nature and the Sun will eventually make the slop of snowfall melt away.

  -30-