Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Bob Stannard, a resident of Manchester, former lawmaker and now a lobbyist for Citizens Action Network, a group that has pushed for the shutdown of Vermont Yankee, the state’s sole nuclear power plant, in March 2012.
You watch as the first flake falls from the sky and lands nearly weightlessly on your coat sleeve. Upon closer examination you can see the tiny, frozen, symmetrical points. In the back of your mind you recall hearing about a guy; “Snowflake” Bentley and you remember that there are no two snowflakes that are ever exactly the same.
This thought overwhelms as you look up to see millions of frozen flakes gently drifting down from above. Thinking of the ride down gives you a sense of peace and serenity. You think to yourself, “How beautiful this snow is; perfect in every way”.
Three months later you are running around your house with buckets, sponges and mops frantically trying to absorb the drops of incoming water rapidly creating streaks down your walls and pools on your floor. You are praying that the weight of the now frozen solid snow/ice will not collapse your roof.
You tell your wife not to worry; “This happens every winter, honey.” She’s not buying it.
Later during the summer months when you are both enjoying a gin and tonic on the deck she will remind you of the torrents of water that leaked into your home and if now isn’t the time to repair the leaks in your roof. You, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine and balmy 80 degree weather, will struggle to find the ambition to go crawling around a 110 degree attic looking to see if you can find the water stains left over from last winter.
Unfortunately for you that day of procrastination is months away and right now you have about 2 feet of solid ice hanging precariously on the eves of your house. If you’re like me and have a corrugated metal roof you now find yourself trapped in your home for fear of having the ominous, curling sheets of ice that are protruding from the edge of the roof by four feet or so come crashing down on top of you when you turn the doorknob.*
*(This did happen to me many years ago when our kids were little. With bags of groceries in each arm I told them to never play near the house when they could see ice like that, because it could fall and bury them. They groaned, wanting only to get inside out of the cold. Turning the door handle was enough to cause the overhanging ice to break lose, land on the back of my neck, driving me into the deck, groceries flying, and rendering me unconscious, proving, once again, that a visual is worth a thousand words. To this day the now grown children stay away from the house).
The first of everything is just about the best. The first day you bring home that new puppy the kids are all smiles and positive feelings towards little Fido run high. The kids pledge to care for the puppy’s every needs. Six months later all your shoes are chewed to pieces and you’re still cleaning up dog pooh off the Oriental rug that belonged to your in-laws, which you pledged to cherish for all time.
Babies. There is nothing more loving and adorable than a baby. They coo and gaw and are perfect in every way. We can even overlook a full diaper. I mean, really; look at that beautiful, toothless smile. It just melts your heart, doesn’t it? You can sit and stare and monitor each and every breath a baby takes like you can stare endlessly at the points of that first snowflake.
In a blink of an eye that baby is a sullen teenager with raging hormones. Nothing you say or do is ever right. They would prefer that you pay the utilities on the home while living in exile in northern Maine. They beg to borrow the car and notwithstanding your doubts about their driving skills you let them take it. Hours later you receive the call.
“Don’t worry, I’m OK” says that once adorable baby as it describes in excruciating detail how it has destroyed your car. As you listen to the monotone details of your car being ruined you might be inclined to think you could care less whether this person of your own creation is “OK”. Most likely you will have to be restrained upon the child’s return home.
Yes, things generally start off just fine. There are numerous examples of this phenomenon; the Iraqi War, political inaugurals, weddings, the purchase of just about anything new.
The beginning is the easy part. It’s the passage of time that puts us to the test. The next time you find yourself with 20 leaks and only 10 fingers, take a moment to reflect. Stop and think for a minute how utterly beautiful was that first snowflake that has led you to the catastrophe you are now facing. Sorry, it won’t help much, but it will put the fear of God into you, though.
Maybe that miraculous, symmetrically perfect piece of frozen water is designed to be a message; a warning that things are rarely what they appear to be.
Good luck with that roof.
