By Jim Diem
It has finally snowed more than an inch here in Elyria, Ohio. I’ve been living in Ohio since Thanksgiving, where it has snowed three times but no more than an inch or so, which melted and was gone by the next day.
We’ve had temperatures in the 40s and 50s, and it even hit 60 one day. We’ve been assured that those temps were not usual for January in northern Ohio.
I can believe that, for I was raised in northern Ohio just a few miles from where I live now, in a western suburb of Cleveland. I can remember snows large enough to be classified as blizzards, though the snow levels here are nothing like the levels in Newberry.
I did not mind the snows in Newberry; it was always challenge to move it from where it landed to where it was out of the way. Don’t get me wrong: moving six inches to a foot of snow three days in a row got to be exhausting, especially after the snowplows came by. Although I mentally cursed them out, I was grateful to have a cleared street.
Nancy and I drove to Newberry on Christmas Eve to celebrate a white Christmas one last time. It was wonderful to see the tunnel of Christmas bells hanging over Newberry Avenue. Elyria has nothing to compare with it.
One thing Elyria does have is a 20-movie theater complex just five miles from where we live. So far I’ve watched Midway, Star Wars, Beautiful Day (the flick about Mister Rogers), and 1917, but I do miss the murals on the walls of the Tahqua-Land Theater.
I also miss the action of the sports teams of Newberry and Engadine. I’m sure the sports teams of the high schools around here have much the same action, but I have no connection with them and no desire to watch. So I listen to the streaming of Casey Cook on WNBY and Dan Hardenbrook of M-123fm.com. I also have a subscription to the Newberry News. Carol Stiffler has done a marvelous job with the paper. I know she and Steve will keep it up.
One aspect of living here is the traffic. I spend as much time waiting for the traffic light to change as I do in driving to my destination.
I don’t think I can write a column a week like my brother Bill. We still have a lot of unopened boxes to find at home here and I’m kind of addicted to Netflix.
