REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK tells what writer experienced while touring the Pennington area during Monday’s blizzard.
By John Tredrea
On Monday morning, seagulls were circling over the Pennington Quality Market, as the west wind swirled snowflakes that looked like pingpong balls. The big white birds’ cranky flight-patterns seemed to reveal the mind-set of a refugee: tired, hungry, irritated and wanting to go back home but unable to get there due to conditions beyond one’s control.
Time and again, each of the gulls turned to the east, toward the coast from which they had been blown 40 or more miles by the blizzard. But the wind would have none of them. As soon as a gull turned east, it would be blown dozen of yards to the west in a split second. Then, the gull would sail down toward the Dumpsters in back of the market, toward which the bird seemed to gaze longingly as if to say: "Man, when are these guys going to come to work and start opening and closing those dumpsters so I can get myself something decent to eat? I can’t make it all the way back home on a stomach this empty! Give me a break, will ya?!"
But no one would be coming to work at the market Monday. A state of emergency had been declared in New Jersey and the market, which only closes a few days a year, was shuttered tight and would remain that way until the next morning. The state of emergency was lifted at 6 a.m. Tuesday.
The Exxon station across Delaware Avenue from the market was open, though. Business was much slower than usual. In fact, if it weren’t for tired-looking snowplow operators and just-as-tired-looking copspolice officers coming in for a quick coffee and snack, there wouldn’t have been any business at all except for a quirky pilgrim in a four-wheel-drive who came in and wanted to know: "Is there any kind of restaurant open nearby where you can get something to eat?"
"Don’t think so," he was told. "Not today."
He shrugged as if confused. "Humph," he said. "I’m from Michigan."
"Then you’re pretty used to this kind of thing."
"Oh, yeah."
"Welcome to the tropics."
"Thanks a lot."
Then he left and got back in his four-wheel truck, perhaps to continue his odd and lonely odyssey in search of a restaurant during the peak impact of a record-setting blizzard. He wouldn’t have to wait long for a table if he found it.
Like the Exxon, Route 31, which at Delaware Avenue is inundated with cars and trucks on any normal Monday, was empty of motor vehicle traffic other than plows, which streamed by in all types and sizes, and emergency service vehicles.
About 150 yards east of Route 31, a squirrel on the grounds of The Pennington School walked on water, almost. The squirrel was about 10 feet from the base of a big maple tree when it saw that a Labrador, being taken around town by its owner, was after him. Fearing for his life, the squirrel ran across the 2-foot-deep white powder so fast that he didn’t even leave any tracks, no lie. It seemed a miracle, because the snow, just out of the sky, was very light. You could blow a palmful of it off your glove with almost no effort at all.
Maybe it was one of those flying squirrels, cruising at low altitude just to tease the dog.
Across the street from where the squirrel had made it back home alive, a pair of newspaper boxes chained to a telephone pole were almost gone. That is, they were almost completely buried by the snow. You could just see the white top of one box and the blue top of the other. So the news never stops, eh? Says who?
A little further to the east, a Pennington Public Works employee plowing the intersection of Delaware Avenue and Burd Street rolled down his pickup truck’s window to say hello.
"Well, the radio says this storm should be all said and done before too much longer," he said. "Glad to hear that."
"Been on the plow long?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Must be tired?"
"Oh, yeah." But he was smiling when he said it.
An independent snowplow operator, at work a little further up the street, had a different slant on things. This storm obviously was giving his budget a real shot in the arm.
"How you doing?" he was asked.
"Great!" he replied, gunning the motor of his out-of-gear truck for emphasis. Gazing rapturously toward the sky, he pointed to snowflakes and said: "Pennies from heaven! Keep on coming down, fellas, just as long as you want."
A few hardy souls had come outside and begun the daunting task of shoveling their sidewalks and driveways and clearing their cars of snow. But most people were still inside, waiting it out, their porches eerily invisible under huge shrouds of frigid, sloping whiteness.
Some of the cars parked behind the stores on North Main Street had been almost completely buried by drifting snow. A small piece of the driver’s side window was all that was showing of one of these cars. The window looked like a weird eye encased in ice, glaring angrily at the world. Brrr!!! Time to keep walking…
All the businesses on North Main were closed, except for one: Pennington Apothecary. The pharmacist, on duty in case of emergencies, popped out to say hello.
When he went back inside, all was silent and still again in the deserted town. The only sound was of the west wind driving the deluge of snow to earth and the seagulls far from home.

