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Revenge Served Cold

There is a saying, ascribed to the Mafiosi, to the effect that Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold. According the Urban Dictionary and thanks to the Internet, this translates to something like you get your best revenge after a lot of planning and premeditation. Kind of like how my prosecutor friends often describe-erroneously, of course– the mental state of some of my clients.

Well, here I sit at 350 Orange Street on January 27, 2011, having removed more than a foot of snow, again, from my car, hoping against hope that the accumulated three-plus feet of snow on the flat roof over my den will not turn to water and run into the electric sockets. My Circadian rhythm has been interrupted by unscheduled court closings and schedule changes. Worse yet, I have been cajoled, then prodded and more recently threatened by those in charge of this screed to write something for publication. “We are late”, they say, implying that there are those who actually read what here is writ and ascribe to it a schedule of publication upon which others rely. Well, I shall indulge their fantasy, but only briefly.

We have had this winter record snow falls. Again and again we have heard and seen in recent month’s forecasts of low pressure areas, Doppler radar, green, yellow, blue and magenta overlays to the map of the Land of Steady Habits signifying bad weather ahead. And indeed, we have had bad weather. There are students in Connecticut who before the school year is out will be slathering up with SPF 30 sunscreen waiting for the Fourth of July recess. And, based on personal experience with the esteemed Mrs. Dow, close behind them will be teachers with tongues hanging out and bloodshot eyes, working into the early morning hours to complete meaningless No Child Left Behind Forms no one reads.

Why, one might ask, have we been afflicted with this deluge of crystallized precipitation? When, in fact, did New Haven turn into Bemidji, Minnesota? And, more importantly why? Many theories abound. Is this a sign that the Apocalypse is upon us? A consequence of Global Warming? Maybe Al and Tipper Gore’s divorce? Is this a product of Fox News? Does it have anything to do with the financial woes of the Crystal Cathedral? Maybe, some opine, it all began with the revelations about Jim and Tammy Baker. Or, worse yet, those about Jimmy Swaggart. Or maybe, just maybe, it is payback for those who supported Obama’s Health Care Reform legislation or, worse yet, the revocation of the military’s Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy. The conspiracy theorists are in their glory.

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Well, I agree. But I don’t buy into any of the theories outlined above. In my mind there is no doubt that the record snowfalls can be ascribed to the ill-advised decision by News Channel 8 to terminate longtime weather maven Geoff Fox. It is no coincidence, I submit, that the problems all began
after Fox was advised that his contract would not be renewed after 26 years of his nightly, irritatingly upbeat predictions at 5, 6 and 11, charts and all. Geoff had become a fixture for those who wanted to know what the next day would hold. And he was one of the few on-air folks at the station who know that the town we live in is pronounced New HAven, not NEW Haven, with an emphasis on the HAY, not the NEW. (The latter being a sure indicator of the newly arrived transient newscaster who is sure to be gone in two years.)

Well Geoff’s gone now. But like Mother Nature, it’s not nice to fool with Geoff Fox. Although he planned to play out his contract to the last day, management realized that their mistake would be magnified if he were to return. So then, Geoff has extracted his own revenge. It has taken the form of semi-weekly blizzards visited upon us throughout the month of January.

In Geoff’s case, revenge has been served not only cold, but white, windy and with drifts up to eighteen inches or more. Hopefully he’ll relent and by the end of Spring Training we’ll be back to normal. But look out. If they put Ann Nyberg’s head on the chopping block it could be worse.