The Hudson River in Snow

After shoveling the sidewalk in front of the house, I went down to the river, because I was curious to see what it looked like in a snowstorm. In fact, it was quiet and cold and beautiful.
I spent a few minutes watching the birds and remembered episodes of my past involving snow; how in second grade, after my brothers and back neighbors built a 'track' -- roughly analogous to a bobsled run for sleds that went all the along the side of our house before curving down through three levels of backyard -- while riding on the back of 'Bone' (the nickname of our neighbor) I went off the final jump and flipped into the air so that I landed on my face and ended up with a big black eye that I proudly wore to school the next day.
Or how a few years after that, while at a hockey tournament in Erie, I was tackled by a man in snow boots after hitting his car with a snowball, having mistaken it for that of our coach.
Or in junior high, when we used to line up on opposite sides of Bower Hill Road and spend hours after school lobbing snow balls at each other (again, sometimes severely perturbing drivers of those cars who happened to be in the line of fire).
None of this, it's fair to say, prepared me for the massive snowball fights I witnessed -- and to some degree participated in -- in Ithaca, where seemingly thousands would line the streets and launch heavy artillery at those on the opposing side. These were events that resonated with a sense of complete anarchy; there was no rhyme or reason to which side of the street you ended up on: you merely picked one and went to war. I was honestly surprised that more students weren't seriously hurt during these affairs.
As disruptive as the snow was to the local economy today -- my office was closed -- it seemed to have no bearing on the massive ships sailing up and down the Hudson.
As I watched the ship sail under the bridge, I was struck by the idea that the 20th century was really the first in which the flow of commerce seemed to completely transcend even the most disruptive forces of nature.
It seemed incomprehensible to me that (to give one obvious example) over 230,000 people in Haiti just perished in an earthquake, yet even this -- or so I have to imagine -- will not have any serious impact on economic growth, at least as measured on a worldwide basis.
On a certain scale, it seems, none of us has any more significance than a single snowflake; we each fall from the sky, last a little while and then melt away, leaving the earth no different than before.

Comments

[SMM]

Beautiful

[Matthew Gallaway]

Thanks Z!!!!

[Kelly T Keating]

The last line is really swell, poignant.

[Matthew Gallaway]

Thanks KTK!

[Edward S.]

Wonderful writing and photos! I live in the neighborhood as well and walked virtually in your tracks (or you in mine) yesterday. Owing to the lack of visibility, I could not see New Jersey across the river and so standing on the banks the Hudson I felt like I could just as well have been standing at the edge of a limitless sea.

[Matthew Gallaway]

Nicely said, Edward -- thanks for reading!