Snowed-In Memphis
The winter in Memphis has so far been one of the more pleasant surprises about this city. For the most part the weather has been extremely mild, on par maybe with the Northern California this time of year. However, when I was first interviewing for the Rhodes job I was warned that there will be one or two snowstorms a year, and that those snowstorms bring the whole city to a halt. A couple of weeks ago I found out that was no exaggeration. Memphis was covered in several inches of snow, in what would probably pass for a mild snowstorm in the Midwest. However, the combination of snow and ice rain made driving conditions extremely treacherous. School was cancelled at Rhodes, and I presume many other schools and businesses were closed in the community as well. Now I am no stranger to snow, and aside from driving around in conditions that make my windshield freeze (my poor car's heating is brokenL) I can handle this sort of predicament. Or so I had thought. It turns out that aside from the major interstate highways no other roads, pathways or parking spaces were cleared of snow. For days. This seems to be because the infrequent snow doesn't make it worthwhile for the city authorities to invest in snow-cleaning equipment. However, I am not sure if that is a very economically sound decision. After all, all the businesses and services that are closed are surely a net-loss in profits for those businesses at least, if not directly for the city. Anyways, because of all the snow and ice everywhere I was forced to drive very gingerly around one day when I absolutely had to leave my apartment. When I was coming back to my place, I was turning into the parking lot at a snail's pace of 5 miles/hour. Even so, my car slid on the frozen onramp and hit the median divider. I was stuck that way for a few minutes, but managed to get dislodged thanks to some friendly neighbors who pushed my car.
It is snowing again in Memphis today, and sure enough classes at Rhodes are cancelled. I don't teach on Mondays so this would not in principle affect me, except that I am flying into Memphis from Indiana later on this evening. I am not looking forward to my drive home from the airport, and have some serious trepidation about it. Hopefully I'll make it in one piece.