In The Higher El's

We had a little snow this afternoon. Well, a little here in the lower part of the Valley; “about a quarter inch in drifts,” I told a friend. She, living just a bit higher, said there was between half an inch and an inch – “enough to sweep off my porch and steps.” That’s how it goes around this area: Down by the river, we get just so much snow; go a bit higher, which you can do without thinking about it, and you have twice as much. A bit higher means just that: You can gain a little altitude here just by going up a street.

“Five inches in the Valley, with ten or twelve inches in the higher el’s,” the tv people tell us. We know just where those higher el’s –elevations— are: Mountaintop (which does not exist), the Back Mountain (originally Back of the Mountain) and most of I-81 and 115 as they head south.

Mountaintop, for those who wonder, exists only as a small post office and its building on one of the higher settled points around here. It’s the agreed-upon designation for two or three otherwise named townships and a school district. It makes sense locally, like the San Souci Parkway. Anywhere in the world, that would be spoken as the “San Sousee,” but around here it’s “San Souee,” as if you were calling pigs.

It’s hard to forecast the weather around here because of all these hills and valleys. You get 5” of snow here, but the winds over there blow their snow to the next place; go through the Rock Cut on 309 and, as you climb that half-mile or mile, you leave rain and enter hard snow. “Maybe an inch or two in the Valley, but in the higher el’s…”