It is a noun, you know? Some would use it in the traditional English manner to describe a second crop species, also known as a “rowen,” according to our pals at Merriam-Webster. We watched Punxsutawney Phil from his lair atop Gobblers Knob this morning. His handlers say the first cut on our lawn rowen is still a couple months away. This wasn’t anything near what I was thinking. The noun I would use is the one that follows an event, especially one of a disastrous or unfortunate natural consequence. Like war. Or election. Or the aftermath of the snow.

It was real enough, and it was a big one, though it mostly missed us. But that lurched into how to deal with the modest five inches of honest snowfall. I am not saying this was anything more than modest inconvenience in a state that actually has winter. I called family up in Michigan, which deemed the storm sufficient enough to declare an emergency. Other places are having a predictable aftermath, which is allocating plows and salt trucks to clear critical areas.

Our aftermath is something different. My general policy in Virginia has been to sit and let it melt without expending precious energy. It normally works pretty well here. But this airborne moisture is being rushed along by a frigid Jetstream that will keep us coated for a couple days. The little paths out the door to the back deck have already been tramped into the usual hard pack medium gray that makes a trip out to there for a smoke hazardous to the health.

But that is just one step in a potential cascade of aftermaths. I have a sword rack by the back door. It was a slightly whimsical answer to having a few swords laying around the farmhouse- my old Navy dress sword and a couple others saved from youth. The one on the bottom, handy for a right hander like me, would enable me to confront sudden peril from the back deck. It is a Japanese Naval Sword. It was surrendered by the former owner to LT Ed Anderson, USNR, on Guam in the third to last large unpleasantness in the Pacific. Ed was Dad’s old boss, and it became an aftermath item on its own.

I was inching into the house with ice caught up in the tread of my shoe. The rugs have all been pulled up to avoid tripping on them, but the combination of ice and polished wood flooring could lead to one of those improbable aftermath situations. You know, abrupt fall. Flailing arms brushing the rack, angling the samurai blade up, off the rack and inflicting an inadvertent aftermath on its custodian. Circumstances being what they are, I took a practical approach and resolved to worry about it only when it was no longer a worry.

The Public Safety Committee of the Socotra Workers Collective came to management and recommended a job-creation program by which the private sector would endow external workers familiar with the situation to moderate danger. Our regular guy, a Trump voter originally from Bolivia, was joined by a young citizen to hack the ice into order, hoist the fallen fire-log storage rack back up on the deck so we do not look overly disheveled, and maybe bring up a quarter cord from the circular drive to try to stay warm.

It occurred to me in the process that without that arguably necessary commercial support life would be considerably different. Possibly colder.

A point to ponder in the new age. So that is the aftermath of the storm. The weather guessers claim we could have a ‘rowen’ or two of additional snow, and the famous Groundhog says we have six weeks with real possibilities for more fun. I am avoiding the sword rack on the way out back, though. That sort of aftermath should wait until it is warmer.

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
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