Radio Free Montone: Winter Finally Grew A Pair
By John Montone, 1010 WINS
Our wussy winter grew a pair.
Snowless for its first month the winter of 15-16 hit it out of the park with a Nor'easter/blizzard/monster that dumped almost 27-inches of snow in Central Park beginning in the wee hours of Saturday morning and blowing through relentlessly for 24-hours.
Pressed into weekend duty I took the 1010 WINS Mobile Unit out on the highways of New Jersey Saturday morning. Visibility was so limited on the Garden State Parkway in Clifton I could not see the car in front of me until I was a foot or so from its rear bumper. The driver pulled over to allow me to pass and flipped me off as I did. On the exit ramp to Route 3 East I suddenly swerved to avoid a car stuck in the middle of the road and drove into a ditch. I revved the engine and popped back out preventing a premature end to my reporting duties.
On Route 3 I passed MetLife Stadium. But I could not make it out from the highway. The snow was white out blinding.
My first stop was Hoboken to check on the Hudson River at high tide. During Sandy, brackish river water filled the Lackawanna station and submerged the PATH tracks. The Port Authority feared a repeat flood, but while the river was rough, it remained well below the bulkhead. That freed me to take a walk and interview folks who were using the immaculately-plowed Washington Street as a sidewalk and heading to a local grocery store…you can fill in the "bread and milk" jokes. I also tossed in a shout out to my daughter, Jackie, who lives right off Washington, but she must have been sleeping late because I didn't hear back.
My next major destination was the Jersey Turnpike which to my surprise had been plowed shoulder to shoulder. I caught up with a crew of plow guys and gave them their props on the radio. They were already ten hours into their shift with no end in sight.
Traffic was light to non-existent as all the major malls and most everything else was shut down. In Paramus I stopped by The Whole Foods figuring a supermarket would remain open. Wrong. "Well now you can't buy organic bread and milk," I reported. And near the end of day I met a guy named Gus at a gas station on Rt. 17. Gus was out and about like a little kid. He had just moved here from a beach town in Southern California and was loving the snow which he used to play in as a kid in Chicago. And Gus also fell in love with something else…1010 WINS radio. "I put it on and I'm keeping it on," he told me.
Gus's enthusiasm reminded me of the intimate nature of our medium. When I encouraged listeners to tweet about their storm experiences, a young lady sent a picture of a book and a bottle of wine. In a LIVE report I questioned why the bottle had yet not been opened. Within minutes came another tweet, cork popped. #Salud
Salud to you and thanks for turning to 1010 WINS when the going gets tough.
