Snowbird or snow geese?
The Secret Life of a Snowbird: An Inside Look at Retirement in America’s Sunbelt” is the humorous memoir of Len Schritter, who like tens of thousands of other “snowbirds” migrates from blizzard-prone areas like Boston and Idaho to retirement in sunny Arizona. He recently blogged about Boston: “Winter was all-consuming. Shoveling walkways after each storm. Taking time to bundle up before going out the door. The ever-mindful adjustment of walking and driving on ice and snow. There was no escape. Now to us snowbirds, winter is a TV show, something we watch on the evening news. There is no snow to shovel. There are no icy roads. We don’t worry about how we’re going to get from point A to point B. We just go.”
Rehoboth resident Pierce spent the month of February captive in a villa in the British Virgin Islands. His wife recounts, “He discovered The Weather Channel for the first time. He kept checking out the weather in Boston. His arm grew about six inches from patting himself on the back for leaving that fair city in 1961 - vowing never to return.”
“Normally I am not bothered by the weather,” explains Millsboro resident Mary, who hails from New Hampshire. “But the channel beside my home has been frozen for over two weeks. I really miss the ducks and their ducklings floating by. It’s lonely.”
Perhaps some of you watched the cover story on CBS’s “Sunday Morning” March 1, 2015, when Lee Cowan interviewed the winter caretaker of Yellowstone National Park, Steve Fuller.
“What an extraordinary landscape, huh? You see all kinds of animals passing through - grizzly bears, big herds of bison, elk.”
“Do you get lonely?” Cowan asks.
“Never,” Fuller replied. “Never have. Never had cabin fever. Never been bored.”
I would have joined a herd of bison to escape this isolation. The crew drove two hours by snow coach to reach this man. A snow coach?
Some people are like the snow geese that grace our fields each winter, content to sit in a field among friends. Others need to get the hell out of here. And I am guessing there is a massive flock of old birds who wish they could afford to fly anyplace warm. Either they have to work or they can’t afford to jet away.
Outside my window each morning, I watch a new home being constructed. No matter how windy or frigid the temperatures, a crew of young men layered in jackets and jeans shows up at 7 a.m., and they pound and lift and haul till 5 p.m. I watch them from inside my warm house, holding a hot cup of coffee and think how dare I whine about how tough the winter is for me. I don’t have to report for work at all, let alone perform physical labor. Still, I envy my neighbors who left for Florida at the end of December and have not had to listen to the noise of new construction.
Snowbird Schritter writes, “The longer I go without experiencing winter weather, the more I don’t want to. I wouldn’t trade places with anybody … I know that I’m very blessed to be here, and I never take it for granted.”
I looked up Len’s website and it says, “Len Schritter is a third-generation farmer and rancher in Aberdeen, Idaho, where he and his brother Mike run a 3,500-acre farm on which they produce potatoes, sugar beets, and wheat. Len wants to state here publicly how bad he feels leaving Mike behind on the tundra to tend to things.” My condolences to brother Mike.
