Archives: It's Not Even Winter Yet

Wednesday, December 9, 2009: 3:15 a.m. I wake to the sounds of young men in the street bellowing the F word in a tone immediately associated with a six-pack or several. We live close to the university campus, where more houses than not are home to undergraduates making their first foray into independent living. By day they lend a cheerful energy to the neighborhood; by night their werewolf selves emerge, triggered by parties celebrating football games, Fridays, significant barometric changes, anything at all. On this particular night, Madison's sky is lit with a full moon and falling snow—so much snow that classes have already been canceled for the first time in nearly 20 years. It will be a long night.

I slide out of bed and peek out the window, Gladys Kravitz style. It takes a few moments to make sense of the scene on the breast of the snow. Yes, there are the expected half-dozen youths, without coats (drunken oblivion? high metabolism? rebellion against their mothers?). But what are they doing, dandling shovels down there and huddling in conference, alternately whispering (always a bad sign) and bursting forth with mirthful F's...? My eyes drift a foot or two behind them to a six-foot-high white mound along the curb. Ah.

I crawl back into bed, thankful that my own car is safely stowed in a locked garage.

Madison made the national news the next day with its 17-inch dump of snow. CNN video clips showed hundreds of university students on Bascom Hill in the snowball fight of the century. In a grand finale that is the stuff of folk and fairy tales, they rolled a giant snowball down Park St. Perhaps my local band of exuberants were among them, or maybe they were still at home, recovering or hiding or both. In any case, the season has begun, and we have five months to go before we see the ground again. Before then, I vow to have those eager boys and their shovels over. We have a driveway in need of snow excavation, and some killer macaroni and Wisconsin cheese to offer in return. Party on!

The Crime Scene in Broad Daylight:
What's under that snowbank?