A few months ago we sat in the chamber of the Nassau County Legislature and heard an employee of the Parks Department testify. He had just heard that cuts were to be made in his department's budget and he expressed his concerns that there might not be enough money in the budget for dealing with snow this winter. "We can deal with one or two snowstorms," he said, "but after that we'll be in trouble." Now we are reluctant to acknowledge that we are superstitious, but, as a relative used to say, "Why look for trouble?" This remark about snowstorms set up a warning signal. Was this man calling down a jinx on us? We have had four winters with virtually no snow and many people have said that this is a result of global warming and that the snowy winters are a thing of the past. Five years ago, in the Manhasset Press, we had a picture of a man who had written "17" on the roof of his house, indicating that we had just experienced the seventeenth snowstorm of the winter. When the snow began to fall on Dec. 30 this year we had a distinct sense of unease. Was this the beginning of another of those winters? County Executive Thomas Gulotta has issued a press release complimenting his own office and county workers on the way they dealt with the first snowstorm of the season. Let's hope that he has figured out a way to deal with future storms if they are more than two. In the meantime, here are the words of that stoic, Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitant of the northern temperate zones wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics."

EFB