Why is it that, with the first snow fall each year, people act like newcomers to the planet? If winter & all of its trappings were something new, I might be willing to cut a bit of slack. But it’s not. It’s a season we’ve been experiencing for generation after generation after generation. I’m guessing snow was around even before people. But I wasn’t – so it’s just a guess.

December 6, 2010 @ 3pm - Toronto's first snow "storm" of the year.

I actually turned on the news this morning in gleeful anticipation of seeing this year’s Darwin Award nominees; the fools who would, inevitably, end up in the ditch because they were certain they could take that snow-covered corner just as deftly as they did in August. It was reported that there were 170 collisions in the 12 hours after the snow started falling. Oy vey.  Tow-truck companies must need relief staff to count all the extra income they make this time of year.

Also? This is Canada. The Great White North isn’t just a cute nickname. What happens when a real snowfall hits? Well, if you live in Toronto, you know all too well what happens: you become laughing stocks.

And, in Toronto, the weather doesn’t even get all that bad – not compared to Snow Belt areas of the country.  But to listen to the news reports you would, honestly, believe that we were being smote by the next Ice Age.

In 1999 the lunacy reached heights of utter ridiculousness when our then-mayor Mel Lastman actually called in the military to shovel snow. Go back and read that sentence again. Yes. The military.  A city the size of Toronto doesn’t have a plan in effect for the unlikely event of a snow storm? Because it is highly unlikely it might snow here. During winter. In Canada. Yes, there was much pointing and laughing at Toronto that year. And, you have to admit, it was quite richly deserved. Oh well, at least our trained military personnel were paid richly for their efforts… with free Leafs tickets.