The Bleakness Of Life Doth Overtake Me

Well, not of life of course – just this Wilkes-Barre weather.

Y’see, back when the first few snows fell, it was fun watching the students and their snowball fights. It was even fun walking through the snow over to the newspaper, fun if not great adventure.

After that, we put up with it. Grudgingly, but at least with some modicum of bravery, of stoicism. We face the future, the threat of new snow, with a stiff upper lip, with a head unbowed, with (as the Queen of England put it) “your pecker up.”

Yeah, she really said it. “Keep your pecker up,” she instructed each soldier in the reviewing line. They’d love to, but not with the likes of her. That, if nothing else, shows the difference between English as spoke here and English as spoke there: it ain’t the same. What Her Majesty meant was “Keep your courage up,” which was, actually, the original meaning of pecker, the nose. Not what you perverts think.

So now we face, with resignation, this crummy WB weather, the likes of which would, as they say, try the patience of a saint. Not an Irish saint, of course; they would simply revel in the idea of more suffering and a hit on the “craither,” as they called the good juice. The Italians would leave it to others; Central Americans would put it off until tomorrow, Alaskan saints are used to it, as are those of Central Europe. That leaves the American saints, us, and you know how few we are.