Winter in New England will freeze your jaw shut into a permanent frown. The cold air will burn your lungs so that only bitter sarcasm exhales. Fingertips bleed and hope fades into dirty snowbanks.
The first encounter was around 1 or 2 in the morning after a gig. Down the main road we see flashing lights, little machines and big machines flinging snow, and the largest piles of snow I've ever seen, right in the middle of the road. We weaved, zigged and zagged our way around the mountains, machines and madness, through the post-apocalyptic grey fog and eventually out the other side.
The second time I was alone and the path could not be passed. I sat staring at the giant snow pile, awestruck. Perhaps I was waiting for a savior, a magical Foreman that would steer me safely to Rowley. I realized eventually how silly it was to be sitting and watching the manmade mountain. I turned around and weaved home through the back roads.
Nearly two feet of had been dumped on us the day before last. We dug out and shook off and went back to Work the following day, and the band played that evening. Last night.
I came around the bend, towards the home stretch and there it was again. The monster. The spinning lights and whirling treads and impassable snow mountains. I rolled down my window and yelled, "WHY?" into the night, turned right around and headed towards the back roads I now know all to well.
Why do they put giant snow piles in the middle of the main road after midnight, two days after the storm has hit? The comment section below is open to the masses, ideally a representative from the Town of Ipswich's Department of Public Works.
They do the same thing in Haverhill. At some point the town should come by with a front end loader and dump the snow in the back of a truck and take it... somewhere.
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