River Deep, Mountain High

Well it seems this old cat has been silent for far, far too long.
What has really happened is that this bus trip was postponed
for a while as there was a massive monstrous snowstorm in
late February that actually brought some hurricane winds along
with it. The bus felt like a house of horrors carnival ride on
the road, rocking and sliding about. That's when the pudgy
driver with the coke-bottle specs, covered in sweat yelled
out an enfuriated 'FUCK IT! FUCK IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!' and stopped
the bus right in the middle of a mountain pass on hwy 77.
People were cursing, swearing, praying for their lives and
calling loved ones on cell phones. But me? I sat in the midst
of this beautiful chaos and watched the snow laze down from
the sky in windy lustre and crescendo off the the side of the
mountain across the way. I could also see some small
houses, down in the valley, adjacent to the mountain chunk
of highway we were on, and they looked so peaceful down
there in the darkest blue of nightfall. That's when someone
grabbed my arm and shook me and I heard them say 'I think
he's in shock' in a kind of whisper tone. When I turned to see
who was grabbing my arm, it was a weatherbeaten 40
something year old lady in a toque, balancing her obsese
figure on a very small cane (which she clearly did not need
but probably had as an attention and sympathy-getter) and
she spoke again to me, as if I were a four year old who had
just eaten paste -'We are gett-ting off the bus, Nooow. It is not
safe on the roads. There is a super 8 a quarter mile down the
rooooooad. We are all walk-ing.' I understood her garbled
linguistics and got my shit together and grabbed my backpack.
It kinda struck me funny that a group of 40 something people
were venturing to walk down the shoulder of a 4% grade
highway stretch but in another vein, I really didn't care and
I thought it was kinda interesting. What I found out later,
when we hit the hotel was that all of the major Pennsylvania
highways were closed about 2 hours ago. So there was really
no danger in walking. Well, except for the cane lady who
seemed to be walking on a much shakier and slippery-er
earth than the rest of us. It must have been a neat thing to
see for some farm girl, down in the valley. A bus, turned
sideways in the middle of a mountain pass on 77, and a row
of darkened figures with luggage, trudging thru the snow-filled
winter night. I could hear faint curses from the cane lady and
other characters up ahead, but it still didn't seem to matter too
much to me as I could see the Super 8 sign getting larger and
larger as we walked. The storm ended up lasting for 4 days and
we were all shut-ins. And let me tell ya, I watched more movies
than I ever have. And really, it didn't seem to matter what was
on. I was having a grand old time by myself in my room. At one
point, I even laughed heartily at a joke in the teen travesty of
Legally Blonde. And I thought to myself 'Legally Blonde? What
the fuck has happened to me?' But then I disregarded that
thought as PCU (an old animal house type classic) came on and
I strapped myself in for some solid gold comedy. Who knows
what the neighbours were thinking. They probably heard so
much laughter that they thought I was smokin up, 24/7 in my
room and watching Cheech and Chong. I later heard that people
thought I had hookers in there. Ha. Oh well. More to come.