Lake-effect snow occurs when dry, freezing air picks up moisture as it passes over a body of water. The water evaporates into the air and as it hits land cools and transforms into heavy wet and often voluminous snowflakes.
Normally this snow is a bit of a nuisance to the people of Western New York, especially in Erie County/Buffalo. But sometimes it can be devastating as it was from November 17-20, 2022, when upwards of seven-feet of snow fell in the southern part of Erie County.
In addition to having a strong back you need a certain amount of mental toughness to endure these once in a decade snow events. Though I have no certifications or official training as grief counselor, as a lifelong resident of Erie County I am an expert in the five stages of lake effect grief.
The Five Stages Of Western New York Lake Effect Grief
Denial.
Middle of November
And the always too bright
The always too chipper
Local weather person with white capped teeth
Says prepare thy snow throwers
Extract thy snow shovels from the garage rafters
Lake Effect devastation is upon us
You call bullshit
Say these forecasts are wrong as much as they are right
And with a sardonic laugh you say:
If only I had a job where I could be wrong half the time
Good day readers of P.A.Kane.net, I've got exciting news—I won't be posting anything here in the near future. Isn't that great?
Instead, I'm going to concentrate on a new blog called: Going Mobile With P.A.Kane. In short, my wife and I bought this fully equipped Ram Promaster van and we are headed out on our first van life cross-country trek. The first stop on our maiden voyage will be an overnight in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario where we'll look to have a coffee and a cruller with Ted Nolan at a local Tim Horton's. From there we head west to spend a night or two with friends in Duluth, Minnesota. We continue to move west for a couple of days at Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands in South Dakota. Then it's over to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming to do some hiking. Our journey turns south at that point as we head to Montrose, Colorado for our niece Rachel (and Kyle's) wedding. Our daughter from Los Angeles will meet us there and after the wedding we'll mess around in Colorado until my wife has to fly home for work. I'll take our daughter back to LA, spend a few days there and then mosey back across the country by myself contemplating the ultimate causes of the universe—you won't want to miss that.
And, you won't have to because as we/I go along I'm going document this first ever van life experience with daily posts from the road. So make toast and tea and join me as we go mobile across the U.S.A.
I have to admit it 2022 hasn’t been a great year. There’s been all this unpleasantness about inflation, the insurrection and a mass shooting every other day. Even Taylor Swift had to face some troubling developments that for once wasn’t about some boy in skinny jeans not knowing what he gave up when he dumped her or when she dumped him—I don’t know much about Taylor Swift or her music. I’ve heard though, there’s a lot of dumping going on in her songs.
At any rate, Taylor’s unpleasantness came about when some super clever Virginia Tech Phd. named a millipede he discovered in Tennessee after the mega popstar. He called it: Nannaria swiftae or Swift twisted-claw millipede. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t be too thrilled to have a hundred-legged creepy crawly thing that slithers out of the bathtub drain and startles you just as you’re about to get in the shower named after me. I’m not even close to being a popstar with a penchant for making hit songs about boys in skinny jeans dumping me or me dumping them, but I would find this very unsettling.
It was a four day rental just down the road from Skaneateles (pronounced: skin-ny-at-las) on Lake Otisco in the Finger Lake region of New York State. The mid-June weather was pleasant and the rolling green hills that descended down to the lake provided a wealth of charming views. On one of those hills sat the two story rental which was constructed of decorative hard split cinder block with double hung windows and a metal roof. A large deck extended out from the side door and curved around to the front of the structure. From the deck you could hear the shallow Otisco waves gently kiss the shore and you could get a glimpse of the lake through a multitude of leafy trees, but not in a way where you would say things like, “Wow, what a view!” or “OMG, that’s some body of water!”
Though the construction of the rental was newish, the inside was filled with old wood, creaky fixtures and antiques. Shelves with hundreds of hard-covered books lined the living area and made the place smell like a 1960’s library, but without all that talk of injustice and revolution. The downstairs half-bath was called the “National Geographic Reading Room—RJ Munson Librarian,” and that too had shelves filled with hundreds and hundreds of National Geographic magazines dating back to the 1960's.
It was quite a lovely place, but like the two aging couples that had rented the musty house for the four days the water pressure was spotty. The copper pipes rumbled and wheezed and the water trickled out slowly and sadly like from an old crumbling Roman aqueduct. Worse yet, despite the slow, sad trickling that was like a Roman aqueduct you had to jiggle all the handles to get the water to stop. But even when you jiggled the handles the water still came out in drips and drabs. The two aging couples were like that too—they had to jiggle all their handles but the water still came out in drips and drabs.
Thanks for clicking onto my site and considering my book.
The Last Playlist: A Sonic Epitaph (TLP) is unique in the realm of memoir writing. It combines a music playlist with personal essays for a trans-dimensional reading experience (wow, man) that is sometimes fun, sometimes uplifting, sometimes heartbreaking.
Right at the start here an astute observer might ask—who are you to write a memoir? The short answer, of course, is nobody. But it’s more complicated than that. Writing this book was motivated by the death of my mom. Even though I was in my thirties when she passed I found that I didn’t know her beyond a typical mother/son relationship, which greatly saddened me. I didn’t want that for my own children and since we always bonded over music I thought to write some stories about my life linked to songs I found meaningful. Combined into one package these songs and their corresponding essays make up TLP. Also, when I pass from this world, this playlist—the last playlist—is to be the music at my funeral party. So, it’s music, it’s memoir, but more than that—it’s a love letter to my kids.
TLP is broken up into three sections: Preface,Introduction and Essays (the actual playlist):
In the Preface I give a little history and how to on playlists, which I have been making since the early 80’s when they were called mixtapes. Yes, I’m that guy at a party who drops in his mixtape or hits up the bluetooth speaker and you’re like, “I never heard any of these songs, but OMG, this mix is altering the essence of my being. Please, P.A.Kane, take me home.” To which I’ll respond with a smile, “Thank you sir, but I’m spoken for.” Point is, I know a fair amount of music and know how to put it together into a good mix. So, it’s a little background information.
In the IntroductionI give a brief account of my life starting from just after high school to present day. As stated I explain how I was motivated to write the book after my mom passed. Also included is a discussion about the necessity of planning your own death along with instructions about what should occur at my funeral party upon my demise—(*hint* no white wine or white claw). And, finally, I share some of my personal history, as well as my dreams, schemes and a whole lot of other things. More background information—see a trend?
The Essays—and the actual playlist make up the bulk of the book. Here’s where I detail all the episodes that shaped my life. While the songs and the corresponding essays have a “deep track” feel they are mostly artists familiar from the rock era such as: Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young. The biggest hit included in the playlist is the 1973 top ten song by Stevie Wonder—“Living For The City,” which presents some of the bone chilling realities people of color faced in the early seventies. I use the song to explain what I knew about race growing up in my all white neighborhood and what I learned about race when I actually met some black people entering high school in 1976. I use “Cut My Hair,” by The Who to detail my troubled life at home when I was a teen and “There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You,” by Ben Folds as the vehicle to mark those fleeting moments of grace where no one was cooler than me.
While TLP is set to music it is not necessary to know or like these songs. The essays speak for themselves with the music being an added feature—it’s like a two for Tuesday on your local rock station. But if you are interested in the music you can listen to TLP at my YouTube channel by clicking the link below.
In closing—while I'm not the typical person who would write a memoir, I found the experience of delving into myself was incredibly valuable and I'm very proud of this book. Sitting here, inch by inch, going through and writing out events from my life has given me great perspective and understanding of who I am. It has made me respect my experience and not be ashamed or afraid of the person I am. Through this process I've also come to believe that anyone and everyone would benefit from sitting down with pen and paper and jumping into themselves. With careful, honest consideration people would find many buried treasures living within.
Over the last year I've read the three-thousand page, four volume set of Robert Caro's "The Years of Lyndon Johnson." In the final volume, Caro does an in depth profile of John F. Kennedy. I came away from this profile not only with more knowledge and understanding of Kennedy, but also extremely impressed with the man. Last year when Bob Dylan released "Murder Most Foul," which chronicles the assassination of Kennedy I wrote an essay without fully understanding what was lost that November 1963 day in Dallas. So today, May 24th 2021, on the 80th birthday of America's greatest artist, Bob Dylan, I thought I'd repost that essay.
On April 4, 1968 at 6pm, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down by an assassin's bullet in Memphis, Tennessee. I was a six-year old white kid, in an all white neighborhood and only had a vaguest notion of him. I knew he was an important man, but didn’t understand the words associated with him. Words like civil rights, non-violence and others. So, I asked my dad: “Who is this Martin Luther King guy? After a moment’s hesitation he said, “He’s like the President of the blacks.” Though I certainly wasn’t aware of the struggle of marginalized black and brown people at the time I did know there was a division between the races. In 1968, even a six-year old could discern the divisions in our troubled country. So, this explanation made sense to me.
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