New York Sign Language Joy of New York Snows All But Lost On Cranky Adults By BOB YAMPOLSKY	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
寒波到来で大人は悲喜こもごも 地球温暖化の影響か、NY ではここ数年ほとんど雪の降らない冬を迎えていました。しかし、今年の冬は氷点下の毎日が続き、久しぶりの積雪に子供たちは大喜び。一方、びしょびしょの歩道や渋滞の道路に大人たちはいらだちをつのらせています。

A funny thing has happened this winter in New York: It has been very winterlike.

The past three winters had been warm and rainy, with hardly any snow to speak of. It was nice. These warm winters seemed like just another blessing in the long line of blessings that New York has received in recent years, like the drop in crime and the booming economy and the Yankees' string of championships. One half-expected Mayor Giuliani to take credit for the mild winters, as he has for everything else good that has happened recently.

But when this winter started out warm, people began to wonder: Is this the way it is going to be from now on? Are the cold winters in New York now a thing of the past? Is life going to get all soft and easy? All the articles and editorials about global warming began to ring ominously true.

But with the turn of the millennium, the cold weather has come back with a vengeance. There was a string of days over about two weeks when the temperature didn't get above freezing and the winds that came sweeping off the Hudson River made our faces burn with the cold. Best of all, there was a swift and heavy snowstorm that closed schools and tied up traffic.

For the kids, of course, the snow is great. There is sledding in the parks, and the snowball fights, and the snowmen and snow angels to make. When I was young there were a lot of pretty rough snow rituals: Tough kids would throw snowballs at the city buses, nasty boys would pack ice into their snowballs and, at my junior high, there was a tradition of second year students brutalizing younger students on the first big snowfall.

But I haven't seen anything like that these days: It's as if kids these days are so unused to snow, and so charmed by it, that they can only think of it as peaceful and magical.

For us adults, though a snowfall may bring an initial spasm of happiness when we remember how much we loved snow as kids, it soon turns into an annoyance. The clothes that most of us wear to work aren't meant to handle snow. There's only a narrow strip of sidewalk cleared for walking, and you begin hating the slow, wide people in your way. At curbs there are great slushy puddles to navigate; one misstep, and your shoe is full of ice water. And the piles of snow that were once pure and white become icy and ugly black.

The subways and buses are much more crowded with everyone in heavy winter wear, and all around you people are sneezing and coughing, spreading their nasty germs. Darkness comes early, and everyone is nastier and more self-centered than usual. I've cer tainly found my temper getting short; I find myself spoiling for a fight. I sent a nasty e-mail to a client the other day, and I yell at my kids over trifling things.

This isn't good, to say the least, so I was quite happy a couple of days back when I had a chance to go at it with a total stranger.

I was walking along Broadway when I saw a man on a bicycle kick viciously at a red BMW that was driving alongside him. The driver of the car became outraged, sped up and cut off the bicycle. A young, white man stormed out of the car and charged the fellow on the bicycle, a young, Hispanic man who was obviously making a delivery of some sort.

So Mr. BMW shoves the deliveryman, still straddling his bicycle, so that he falls down into a pile of snow. He gets up, does not fight back, but very softly says, "Let me go, man." But Mr. BMW just screams and curses and shoves him again, saying that he's going to call the police. The kick to the car has dislodged a piece of black rubber running along the side door. The deliveryman moves to fix this, but this only enrages Mr. BMW further. He says, "Don't touch my car!" and again hurls the deliveryman into the snow.

It was here that I interceded. Although I hadn't seen the beginning of the incident, it was easy to surmise what had happened: The car had almost hit the bicycle, and that had led to the kick.

I am afraid that I can't repeat here the actual words Mr. BMW and I exchanged, so suffice it to say that I explained to the fellow that he was wrong, and he chose to disagree. In the meantime, the deliveryman pedaled off.

I could say that I was motivated by a sense of justice, that I was looking out for the little guy. The deliveryman, after all, was probably making less than the minimum wage to ride his bike over icy streets. And here he was, being abused by some guy driving a $40,000 (¥4.2 million) car.

More than that, I had felt like a fight. But being a coward at heart, I only pick fights when I am sure I can win, and I knew this was a fight I could win. That was why I stepped in. How good it felt! As I turned away from Mr. BMW and started on my way, I found that my mood had lightened considerably. I felt exhilarated and cleansed. And as the fellow yelled at my back, "Mind your own business, you (expletive deleted)!" I felt so happy, I turned around and blew him a kiss.

It was a cold day, but sunny, with a beautiful winter sky. Spring was still a long way off, but it was coming. Of this I was sure.

Shukan ST: Feb. 25, 2000

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