Driving in snow the first time all over again

I'm glad that the first surprise snow storm and the first big snow storm of the winter season are over.

Now maybe we in northern New England can settle into the fact that it's winter and drive accordingly.

I'm amazed how many of us forget how to drive in snow from year to year.

This year, the first snow came as a bit of a surprise for many.

Just before Christmas a huge snow storm missed most of New England and parked itself just offshore.

It was close enough that some of the backwash from the big swirl created snow showers in many areas, particularly along the coast, enough for a coating in some locations, enough for several inches in others.

Driving panic ensued.

Cars skidded into each other and skidded off the road. Numerous accidents were reported. In Portland, Maine, more than 300 accidents were reported within a short period of the snowfall.

And I scratched my head in wonder.

If people who live in New England see that it's snowing, doesn't a little switch in their brains click on so that they start driving in snow mode?

We slow down. We leave more than enough space between our car and the car ahead of us.

We don't speed up and drive to our location as fast as we can in the hope of beating the snow there.

Maybe they act and drive like lunatics in the first snow as some sort of denial that it is indeed snowing. By driving like they do in July, maybe they try to convince themselves that winter doesn't really happen around here.

It took last week's blizzard, I guess, to finally get people to accept the fact that, yes, it snows here in New England. And sometimes in snows a lot.

We shouldn't be surprised by this. Not in the first snow in November or December, not in the last snow in March or April.

It's a long winter here. If we're going to winter well in New England we have to remember to drive with our heads screwed on.

A new emphasis on reading

I like that the infusion of so-called e-readers has put a new emphasis on reading in general, on books in particular.

I couldn't understand what motivated Steve Jobs, the head of Apple and a supposed technology visionary, to declare not so many years ago that America wasn't a country of readers any more.

Here's what he said to the New York Times in 2008 on why he thought the Amazon Kindle e-reader would fail:

It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.

Yet, his iPad has now become one of the premiere e-readers out there.

Granted, there's lots more to do on an iPad than just read, but look at how crowded the e-reader genre is these days, with products that preceded the iPad (the first generation Kindle from Amazon and Nook from Barnes & Noble) and those that have come to the fore post the iPad (Samsung's Galaxy Tab, for example).

It is high on the Christmas lits of a lot of people.

According to data cited in a New York Times article, about nine million electronic reading devices are in circulation in the United States. That could jump in the coming weeks to at least 10.3 million e-readers by year's end.

I guarantee you that other products will enter the market after Christmas, and competition will grow among publishers and book sellers to get their products into the hands of those with the devices.

Bookstores will step up their online offerings of titles. Even Google, with its normal spot-on assessment of trends, has launched an online bookstore.

I acknowledge the angst about the future of print and, like many people, I don't want to see print on paper disappear. My professional career was built on newspapers, ink and printing presses.

Books engage Baby Boomers such as me. They appeal to my sense: The scruff of the page against my skin, the visual appeal of the font (I'm a sucker for Georgia and Garamond).

A good writer takes me places where I'm currently not.

But I also know that technology changes things.

Just as Guttenberg's first press drastically changed story telling from oral to written, so too have computers changed the distribution of content from paper to the ether.

We who read continue to read, we just read differently.

And maybe technology gives those who were less inclined to read a greater opportunity and incentive to read.

I know from my reading that e-readers have helped Baby Boomers with adjustable font sizes for aging eyes that don't focus as well as they used to, and for eyes degenerating into macular distortion.

I know Baby Boomers who are voracious readers in print who continue that pace -- and even step up that pace -- with their e-readers because of the vast volume of content they can load onto their devices.

I can't say there's a tactile appeal to these new devices, but certainly there's a visual appeal that will engage readers, young and old alike.

I don't worry about older readers, frankly. If they read yesterday, they continue to read today and will continue to read tomorrow.

If these devices are a means to engage younger readers, then more power to them.

One way or the other, we can make Steve Jobs eat his words about reading.

The gift of music

I grew up in a house of music.

My parents played Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como on the hi-fi. Mostly, I remember the musicals: "Camelot," "Kiss Me Kate," Oklahoma."

I was singing show tunes long before The Beatles arrived on the "Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964 to convert me to rock 'n roll, pop and folk.

As my parent's home was a house of music, so too have been the homes I've had over the years.

Music has been a single thread woven into every apartment, every home, every move I've made from high school to college, from college to first jobs, from bachelor to married, from married to divorced to remarried, from full house to empty nest.

Is music the best gift that mankind has given itself? In my book it is.

No other form of expression has a deeper affect on me. I'm a writer and appreciate what it takes to put word on paper, but even the best writing I've read doesn't have the power of music. Great writing doesn't stir me to weep. A song can.

Why is that?

It could be the redemptive, restorative power that music has on the spirit. It's evocative, not so much that it sparks a memory or an emotion tied to a particular event, but in the sense that it reaches deep in the soul.

Why, when I watched and heard Paul Potts sing "Nessum Dorma" for the first time did I start to cry? Heck, I couldn't even understand the Italian he was singing.

Why does "Defying Gravity" from the musical "Wicked" fill my chest with emotion?

Why, when I'm contemplative and need to sort through the jumble in the brain, do I turn to my guitar?

My most meticulously kept collection of anything is a very large three-ring binder with hundreds of pages of music dating back to the 1960s.

My Yamaha acoustic guitar, Martha (pictured above), which I've had since 1967, has been my companion longer than anyone or anything.

If there was a fire in the house and I had only one thing to carry out, it would be Martha. (I'm assuming my wife, Jane, could carry herself out, of course.)

The best thing about this gift is that I don't have to wait for Christmas ... or my birthday ... of Father's Day.

Music is a gift I open each and every day and am wowed with each new opening.