Snow Was General All Over Pennsylvania

Snow was general all over Ireland.

Did he really need the word "all" in that sentence?

Why nitpick one of the greatest 20th century writers?

Because I can. He's dead and I'm not tonight.

But "Snow was general over Ireland."

Okay, he's right.

I'm wrong.

But I had misremembered the line and dropped the word out.

Maybe I have an Alzheimer's economy deficit of memory. Like my brain chooses to drop out the less essential pieces of data.

Anyway, that's true tonight.

Snow is general all over the goddamn place.

I love picking up my one cat and showing him the snowy landscape.

He's lived most of his young life indoors but if my estimates are correct he had to be born in the tail end of a winter.

So he probably has seen snow before, albeit the light snows (often showers or flurries) of late winter and early spring we experience here.

I love going up to a dark room on the third floor of the house which has a panoramic view of Harrisburg in the central distance, the dark sweep of the Susquehanna River to the left, and the void of dark suburbs spreading east from the city to the right.

It really is a gorgeous Sisley out that window now.

I want to go back and watch it again.

Nobody is on the roads and the snow plow only comes through once an hour or so.

Its work is quickly outmoded with the forgetfulness of the snow that follows.

Nights like tonight I wish I was Hiroshige. Hokusai.

One of those guys anyway.