By Christian Gravius, Contributing Writer
It’s nearly the end of April, and I’m still playing Christmas music over and over in my head. Not full songs, but rather lines in particular. In the 1974 TV Christmas special “The Year Without a Santa Claus,” Snow Miser sings, “I never want to know a day that’s over 40 degrees, I’d rather have it 30, 20, 10, 5 and let it freeze.”
It feels like the little stop-motion character with icicles hanging from his nose finally got his wish.
The unseasonably cold temperatures, mixed with on-and-off episodes of rain and snow, do not make for favorable conditions. As a snowboarder, I absolutely love the winter; I just don’t like when it overlaps with spring. In mid-to-late April, everyone should be outside throwing footballs, grilling hot dogs, going for walks on the Allegheny River Valley Trail and tanning. Instead, students are left catching frostbite while scraping ice off cars every morning, and people are still riding foot-deep powder at Holiday Valley.
Students have really only seen one truly nice day this semester. It was last Friday and people took advantage of it. Students laid on blankets at the baseball game and the lawn in between the townhouses was filled with Kan-Jam games, football tosses, cold beer and loud music. At one point, someone even lit fireworks. That’s how desperate the Bonaventure community has been for a nice day. Students have reached the point where the only way to show excitement is by blowing off explosives on campus.
Since that ever-so-fun Friday afternoon, I’ve gotten out of bed every morning and headed straight to my window to look outside, and I’ve been nothing but disappointed. Each morning, the weather seems more miserable than before: snow, ice, rain and darkness. It’s depressing.
Timing is everything. If we were still in late November or early December, everyone would be loving it. People would be running to Café La Verna for peppermint mocha lattes, putting on their favorite sweaters and expecting a Bonnies basketball game in the near future. The sad reality is, though, none of that is going to happen. Café La Verna has switched over to spring drinks, everyone packed their winter attire away thinking they wouldn’t need it and the Bonnies won’t play again for another six months. Although students aren’t drenched in sweat without air conditioning in Plassmann Hall, this weather is still torturous.
The St. Bonaventure community thrives in warm weather. After all, some of the most-anticipated times of the year are coming up. But, by the look of things, Spring Weekend should be renamed Winter Weekend and the seniors should plan on ice skating on the Allegheny River, rather than floating on rafts during Senior Week.
I realize complaining about the weather is one of the least productive things someone can do, but there’s something to be said about my animosity towards Snow Miser—the fictional Christmas movie character who finally got his wish of never seeing a day over 40 degrees.
Photo courtesy of thelocal.se
