Blizzard

Blizzards, like everything else, are not what they used to be. Oh, snow and wind remain, but consequences tend to be trivial. In 1888, a Long Island blizzard killed hundreds, caught unexpectedly in the fields after a warm spring day. In my youthful 1950s, extended electric outage had my mom chopping up furniture to keep the fireplace going. The current “historic” blizzard of 2026 didn’t even bring down many trees, cause extensive disruption of electricity, close roads more than a day, much inconvenience shoppers or let children have a holiday .

It’s a quite robust world for things that we can prepare for. I not only do not complain, but am in awe at how truly competent our society can be. Not only blizzards, but also other disasters, plagues, and extended patterns like drought, famine. War, of course, remains. And the stubborn, if limited, evil of certain individuals .

Anyway, for a day or so we all enjoyed a true frisson of dangerous disruption. All the better because reality turned out far gentler than imagination. We are quite spoiled .

I try to emphasize that all the time. To be grateful for the normal, the calm, the taken for granted. Glory in how much lives have truly improved for many over the last few centuries. For a little while, to truly embrace the miracles of economic progress .