By: centraljersey.com
I’m prone to insomnia. Sometimes getting up and reading for a while will do the trick, will enable me to fall back asleep (assuming I ever fell asleep to begin with). Sometimes trying to play the piano, which I find very difficult, will work. Sometimes it works too well. More than once I’ve awakened with my head on the top of the keyboard, with a very stiff neck, and found I’d been snoozing there for hours.
It’s better than it used to be, this insomnia business, because a few months ago my doctor ordered me to give up all caffeine, because my blood pressure was getting too high and he was going to have to put me on medication if it didn’t come down some.
In a panicked voice charged with dismay, I cried: "But doc! No coffee? No tea, even?"
"Nope," he said matter-of-factly, writing something on a clipboard. "Decaf only."
"Aw, man," I groaned.
"I think we’re getting to the root of the problem here," the doctor said with a chuckle. "Decaf only."
So I gave up caffeine and feel surprisingly better. Oh, it’s a surprise all right, because I figured I might die. But I don’t want to take any more pills than I have to, so I followed the doctor’s orders.
I fall asleep more easily now, but still wake up sometimes in the middle of the night, usually around 2:45 a.m. If reading or the piano doesn’t work, I’ll go for a walk. We don’t have a dog anymore, but sometimes I’ll run into our cat, Ferris, outside. He stays out all night, fighting – he’s left many trophies on the doorstep – and, well, tomcatting. Then he sleeps on the sofa all day. Ferris is my hero. This guy knows how to live life all the way up. His name, given to him by our oldest son, fits him like a glove, by the way. He’s named after the title character in "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off," a favorite film of the son. Talk about living up to your name, Ferris has taken his whole life off.
But I digress. This is supposed to be about throwing snow.
And it will be, it will be. But I want to tell you a good story about Ferris first. You see, when I go out for a walk at 3 a.m. or so, he’ll often tag along. He’ll pop out from inside a thicket or from under a car, meow a loud hello, and follow me for many blocks, like a dog, except he’s a cat. I’ll never forget one time, at the corner of West Curlis Avenue and South Main Street in Pennington. It was getting close to 4 a.m., a full moon, brutally humid and hazy, a just plain spooky night. A porcupine, or something that sure looked like one, jumped out in front of Ferris, who snarled and acted like he was ready to strike, right there on the sidewalk.
"Don’t do it, Ferris," I advised. "See those quills. That’s curtains for you. If your doctor bills get too high, you’re totaled. You’re toast. I’m no millionaire, Ferris."
The porcupine wouldn’t move. Neither would Ferris. Finally, I scooped the cat up and he only took a pretty small piece out of my wrist and howled so loud I’m sure he woke up people in three or four houses. Oh, well. Maybe they were up anyway, like us.
But about the snow. I’ve been taking some late night walks in snowstorms lately – plenty of opportunity for that – and have seen a number of people throwing, or blowing, snow into a plowed street. It made a real mess, such that the street had to be plowed again. Maybe they thought no one would see ’em at that hour.
"Why would they do that?" I asked myself. "How much harder is it to throw the snow on the lawn, or onto the bank between the curb and the sidewalk, than it is to throw it into a freshly plowed street?"
Who knows why they did it? What’s sure is that what they did meant the street had to be plowed again. That costs money, and it keeps plough operators, who work very long hours during storms, on the job longer than they need to be. And I bet it aggravates and annoys some of those sleep-deprived operators – I know it would do that to me, oh yeah! Tossing snow into a plowed street also makes the street less safe than it was before you threw it there.
I understand, to a point. I mean, it’s 3 a.m. and, especially when you think no one’s looking, it’s easy to do, well, dumb and inconsiderate things. Heck, I can do them all day, not just in the middle of the night.
But please give our plough guys from our towns and the county a well-earned break and help keep the wintry streets as safe as possible. Throw or blow that snow where it’s supposed to go. Don’t be stubborn in an irrational way. That’s for Ferris to do, not you and I.
Man, that tired me out. I’ll try for a nap. See you.
John Tredrea is Staff Writer for the Hopewell Valley News.