Nov-00

For the past two years, when the Thanksgiving break approaches along with the cold winds and gray skies of winter, I start to get a little nervous. On my mind are the days leading up to Thanksgiving 2000, when winter sneak-attacked Buffalo and walloped the city with over three feet of snow in less than 24 hours.

It's not that three feet is a lot of snow in Buffalo - but it came quickly and without warning and peaked during rush hour traffic, stranding thousands of motorists, myself included, on snow-clogged streets.

The storm certainly helped to cement Buffalo's reputation as a frozen wasteland, but in a pretty corny way, helped me and many others see the real character of this wasteland up-close.

That fall I was a senior at a high school in downtown Buffalo, about three miles away from my house. Generally, the drive took 10 minutes.

That Monday, I almost didn't go to school - I was tired, sick and had just returned from Boston the night before. But after losing a battle with myself over whether to go, I trudged off to school in my beat-up Volvo under gray - but calm - skies.

At some point during the morning, however, the skies opened up and let loose an obscene amount of snow. By the time the last bell rang, every car in the parking lot was up to the top of its tires in snow and the snow was falling even faster. It took over 90 minutes to get out of the parking lot alone, and my nine-hour trip home had just begun.

For the rest of the day, I, along with thousands of other Buffalonians, battled the constant snow and brutal winds that brought the city to a dead halt. Roads became virtually impassable, as snow would pile up faster than one could dig out of it.

I attempted to make my way down Main Street to my house, but every time I got moving for more than a block I would invariably come across at least one stuck car blocking the road. That was the Sisyphus-like dilemma of the day - in order to get down the street, you had to stop and help dig out another car that was blocking the way - but by the time you got done, your car had just been buried by the blizzard. Then the person behind you had to dig you out, and so on.

It quickly became clear nobody was going to get home on his or her own. In order to keep the street clear and the traffic moving, everybody had to dig hard and fast around everybody else's car.

I helped to dig out countless cars that day, and countless people helped to dig me out as well - race, age and class didn't matter on Main Street during the storm.

That struggle between the citizens of Buffalo and Mother Nature was at once a symbol of everything that's great about this city and everything that needs to be changed.

The fact that everyone got out of their warm cars and braved the horrendous conditions for the greater good represents the valuable spirit of Buffalo - the conditions sucked, but everyone was going to suffer together and make it out.

The same attitude is found among Buffalonians all the time, whether we are suffering together through blizzards of biblical proportion, or field goals that went a little too far to the right, or goals scored while Brent Hull was so clearly in the crease, or through the downtrodden economy of a town deserted by the industries that sustained it.

The battle we waged against the blizzard on Main Street that Monday also represented the way things need to be, but sometimes aren't, in this city.

Main Street divides middle-class and largely white North Buffalo from the poorer and largely black East Side. During the blizzard, people from both sides of Main Street came together to help each other out. Unfortunately, it is not always like that. Buffalo is one of the most racially segregated cities in the country and the problem is not exactly getting better.

If the cooperation that occurred during the blizzard of 2000 happened every day on the streets and in City Hall, the city and its residents would be a lot better off.

I eventually did make it home, frozen to the core but feeling pretty good about my fellow Buffalonians.

This week, three years later, when I start to feel the brisk winds of winter just before Thanksgiving, I get a little nervous - but after thinking about what happened that day, and how far this city still needs to go, maybe I should hope for a few flakes.