The City that never weeps

So, Halloween week, we dealt with Sandy the Superstorm, and while we here in Maryland did not have huge problems, we still had some coastal flooding and wind damage.

Up in New Jersey and New York, they really got it. You've seen it on the news, the damage, the flooding, the millions of people left without electricity. The perfect storm of misery and suffering.  It's one awful mess to be without air conditioning or even a fan after a summer storm, but to be in nighttime temperatures at or below freezin'°  is really a challenge.

And then, this week, here came another storm - a nor'easter, and 60,000 people who just got their power restored one day lost it the next.  And the news showed all this "freshly fallen silent shroud of snow," to quote from Simon and Garfunkel, covering the detritus cast aside by the previous storm.

Novelist and journalist Tom Wolfe wrote years ago about what he called the New York Complex - a state of mind that tells residents of Gotham and points nearby that it should take a lot to knock them off their strides.  Well, this one-two weather punch delivered of late didn't quite knock 'em out. 

New Yorkers are down but not out.  They are dealing, discarding what was ruined but building on the hope, the dreams and the heart that a thousand storms can't take away from Americans.   It's been great to see them pulling together, great to see others sending blankets, food, water, money and their best efforts to their fellow Americans, and sad to note that not one single crepe was sent by France, not a slice of Canadian bacon was sent by Canada, and not one order of fish and chips came over from England.

America is always the first to load up the station wagon and send help to other nations after catastrophes.  Just sayin'.