Let It Snow

Yesterday, we had nearly 30 inches of snow in my neighborhood of suburban Philadelphia. By three hours into the storm, the Internet, television and phone cable to our house had snapped and we were told that it can’t be repaired for four days. I began to think that this must have been how our grandfather’s felt. Imagine the world 75 years ago, in the northern hemisphere where the winter’s are long. You come home from work at 6:00 PM. You are done dinner at seven. The kids are grown. You and your wife have a great relationship but in thirty years you have pretty much talked most subjects to death. So you have four hours every evening, from seven to eleven with no TV, no video games, no Internet, and in the north lots of darkness and lousy cold weather. Is it any wonder that stamp collecting was a far more popular hobby then than it is today?