Letter from Boston April Fools' Day By MASAKO YAMADA	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
エイプリルフール 3月の末には天候が暖かくなっていたのに、4月1日に、突然の吹雪がボストンを襲いました。母なる自然がエイプリルフールのいたずらを試みたのでしょうか...。

Some of my earliest childhood memories come from the nursery school that I attended from the time I was three years old. I liked words even then and consequently I still remember quite a few of the songs and stories that we learned. One jingle that particularly comes to mind is: "Look out the window, what do you see? Peaches growing on a cherry tree!! I fool you. You fool me. That's on April Fools' Day!!" As children, April Fools' Day was exciting because it was the one day on which we were allowed to lie.

This year, the entire city of Boston got duped on April Fools' Day ― and I think Mother Nature spent the entire day chuckling. The last days of March were finally getting warm, and the wildflowers were starting to bloom. However, on April Fools' Day, Boston got hit by a surprise nor'easter. We've had almost no snow this year, but in just one day, we got enough snow to turn the total snowfall of the season into a normal-looking figure. It was the third biggest snowstorm that Boston has had since the 1960s, and the worst April storm on record. The average snowfall in the area was about 60 cm, but some of the suburbs got 90 cm of snow before the storm was over.

I heard two of my roommates scurrying about the apartment very early in the morning April 1 (my other roommate was in sunny Las Vegas). I noticed that their voices sounded artificially loud; they were making endless phone calls to see whether they had work that day. I knew that BU would be closed. Lynne, who is the director of a day-care center, decided to call it a snow day, so she started calling all of the parents herself. Being very responsible, Amy felt that she "had" to go to work. However, there was no way that she could get there. The Green Line T that runs in front of our house was shut down, and none of the buses was running. Amy was determined to walk downtown, but Lynne and I were appalled by the prospect. It took 10 minutes for us to make our way to the backyard of our apartment; walking those 6 km would take half a day.

After Lynne and I played in the snow for a while, we convinced Amy to come out with us. By this time, it was close to noon. Amy finally gave up the thought of going to work, and we all went outside. We didn't go far. We took pictures on the roof of our apartment building and then we walked down one block to a nearby park. That was a big enough expedition, since the snow was knee-deep and the sidewalks hadn't been shoveled. The snow was so clean and white that it looked like it was glowing blue. We took a lot of pictures and then trudged back to our apartment ― cold and soggy, but exhilarated.

A state of emergency was officially declared for the area, and local officials discouraged people from venturing outside their homes that day. Even the post office was closed. All of the news broadcasts ― which, until then, had been covering the Heaven's Gate mass suicide in California ― were dedicated to the weather. Massachusetts Governor Weld gave a press conference on the possibility of federal aid being allocated to the state, and Boston Mayor Menini fielded questions from angry Boston residents whose roads were left unplowed or whose electricity had been cut off. It's certainly true that we're paying taxes for such public services, but I couldn't help thinking that nobody could really be blamed for the damage: this was truly an unforeseen event.

Even on the morning of April 2nd, some of the Green Line T tracks still were covered with snow. I had to walk about 10 minutes from my home to get on another line. Many people were waiting to ride that T, but they all seemed to be good-humored and patient. The Ts moved very slowly, but they came regularly, and we weren't even charged a fee. By late afternoon, the temperature was spring-like again, and all of the Ts were running as usual. There was still snow on the ground. There were fallen trees and telephone poles on the streets and homes without power. But it seems that the April Fools' Day joke was only a joke ― real life resumed the day after.

Shukan ST: April 18, 1997

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