Nov 25, 2002 4 min read

Ever been in one of those situations where others failed to see the humor in what was going on, but which you thought personally was hilarious? Two newsroom co-workers not only thought my driving in a snowstorm Friday night was hazardous to their health, they were pretty much convinced I was implementing a plan to reduce news department expenses by eliminating them.

The three of us were returning from a trip to Harrisburg when the snow began to fall.

At times, the blowing snow made it almost impossible to see the road ahead.

Once the white lines on the pavement were covered up, you couldn’t really see where you were going.

Now some people might do the prudent, and safe, thing by pulling over to the side of the highway.

But I figure as long as the car is rolling without sliding off the highway, we can still make some forward progress in the 5 or 10 miles per hour range.

If you’ve been caught in one of those blowing snowstorms, you know what happens. The windshield wipers can’t keep up with the snowfall.

You can’t see the highway sometimes. And the snow reflects your headlights so that you can’t see more than just a few feet ahead.

All of those conditions existed Friday night. Yet, we plodded onward, sometimes as the lead car plowing through freshly fallen snow.

The Oldsmobile, with its front-wheel drive, and heavy weight is an excellent car to drive in the snow. I have great confidence in its abilities to stick to the roadway. My co-workers didn’t share that confidence.

Every few miles I would hear the suggestion that we pull off the road for a while. What a bunch of wimps, afraid of dying on a mountain-top highway in the middle of a blowing snowstorm.

After we plowed our way over the mountain, 2,700 feet elevation, we were finally on the downhill side and the snow was not as heavy.

I chose that moment to drag out the cell phone to make a call. You could feel the tension in the air as my companions held their breath, waiting for the Oldsmobile to go careening off the highway over a cliff just because I wanted to make a phone call.

I asked if my call was making them nervous, whereupon they said they were now convinced that I was openly attempting to kill them.

The insanity of driving in a blinding blizzard wasn’t enough; now I was on the phone and driving in a blizzard, they noted.

Actually, I didn’t make a call. I couldn’t get the phone to work. So, they were safe for a few more miles.

The irony in all of this is I’m sure that I would not have been comfortable with someone else driving the car at that time. I probably would have suggested that we pull off the road for a while.

Then they could brand me as a wimp.

We had made a pact when the trip first started. We would never ask for directions, even if we were totally lost, and we would not stop for gas until the gauge was below the empty mark.

We didn’t discuss the possibility of a blinding snowstorm, so I was just doing what most of us half-brained men do.

At any rate, for most of the trip, I thought the comments about slowing down and pulling over, and the expressions of terror from my cohorts were somewhat funny.

After we reached the safety of the lowlands where the snow turned to rain, we all had a good laugh about the ride over the mountain.

For some reason they are insisting that no more trips be scheduled to Harrisburg until spring. Where’s the fun in that?

Mike Ellis is the editor of the Herald-Standard. His e-mail address is: mellis@heraldstandard.com.