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Show High Time , V i By FLORENCE BITTNER Mother nature has a time table, set and inflexible. People usually know they can't fool mother nature, na-ture, and mostly we don't try. Once in a while dear old mother gets her own signals mixed and we poor creatures get caught in the middle while she gets her machinery machin-ery synchronized again. TREES PUT out new leaves in the spring and hold onto them until twenty days after the first frost, then the ieaves drop off and the tree is ready to accept a reasonable burden of snow. Last week mother goofed. The very abundant snow dropped on leaves still clinging to trees. COME ON, Mama. You know better than that. Maybe only God can make a tree, but all kinds of insignificant events can unmake one. Snow can change a stately tree into a pile of rubble. Wind can do it and even rain if the ground gets soggy enough. . . We city 'dwellers went to sleep grumbling about the weather and hating the early snow, and woke to find it had rained trees. THE PARTS of the city with the most stately trees were where people peo-ple were most apt to be treed in. We've been snowed in and even Gained in, but this is the first time . on record we've been treed in. That snapping sound we heard " during the night wasn't the crackle of lightning or the boom of thunder. It was trees groaning and breaking. THE THING about a tree storm is that is doesn't melt or dry up or go away when the sun comes out. Some human has to go out and haul the litter away. One secretary called her office to report that she couldn't come to work because she couldn't get out of her house. Great tree limbs had fallen against both front and back doors. SO MANY people wanted to ride the bus that it was like back in WWII days with the buses so full they left people standing at bus stops till the next bus, and the next. Part of the snap crackle and pop going on in the dark hours of that great snow storm was the breaking of electric and telephone lines. All of a sudden we found out how dependent de-pendent we have become on those ugly wires which stretch along the street or alley and snake into our houses and office buildings. THE NUMBER of things you can't do when there is no electric- itv or telephone is disconcerting. Va First if the phone is dead, you can't call the office to say you won't be in until you can move the tree blocking the driveway. lh- Second, you can't enjoy staying hMi home from work if the house is cold jicd and dark and you can't read or ,i;:iieu watch television, or listen to the tcprcsl radio or catch up on chores. Trtf vifffill' MAKES YOU wonder how they i(e,b coped in the days before houses animal were hooked up to wires. The de- Utah, pendency has developed gradual- Mar ly. First we got rid of old Dobbin. trappi i With a horse, you can ride around single fallen trees, but cars are very ihe St: street-bound. If you cook with a macjly wood stove, you also have heat. ,p, All that kindling and firewood lying ither about would have been a boon in the wood stove days. But a micro- wave oven just doesn't know what , to do with a pile of kindling. . Few houses today are equipped ra" with kerosene and lamps for when Prcaa the power goes off, and even fewer "almi have any means of heating the musk house or keeping the food in the ire( freezer from spoiling. JEenc const MAYBE THE most severe hard- Wi ship of the whole tree storm was losta keeping the kids entertained. rapid Schools were closed because rami teachers can't be expected to cope main with a room full of cold kids. So sites they were returned to the tender adis care of their parents. : ' to What can a kid do with a bonus uljij; day off from school, but no televi- sion, telephone or stereo? Don't anjm ask me. I just ask questions. ONE THING about Mother Na- ture, she knows how to get our I attention. We muddle along on this planet, fussing about the details of life, noses firmly pressed to our fj n assorted grindstones, and sudden- ' ' ly dear old Mama jerks us up and '. e makes us take a look around. She makes us resort our priorities. Maybe the most important thing on the agenda on Thursday morn- e ing was getting the winter coats for all the school kids and how to pay ft for Christmas, but by Friday morn- opp ing, that was way down on the list of things to worry about. Number. one on the worry agenda was how to stay warm, how to get to work 1 and what to do about the pile of trees in the back yard. AND JUST think, kiddies, this is only October. What do you sup- 1 pose dear Mother Nature has in I store for us when she really gets around to showing us her power? |