(originally published May 25th, 2005)

Central New Yorkers are a hearty bunch, but we don’t get enough credit for it. We don’t have the best weather in the world. We average 279 cloudy days a year. In the Syracuse area we average 120 inches a year; within 60 miles there are places that average almost 400 inches a year or more. I don’t know if we’ll ever really be worried about drought conditions in our area. I remember the year it snowed at least to some degree 44 straight days; I remember the year when, in September, it rained 29 of 30 days (I remember that because on day 30 this large tree couldn’t take it anymore and fell towards my parents house when I was still living at home, luckily missing it).

Having said that, I think we’re hearty because many of us don’t live our lives exhibiting the weather. We go on about our business, having learned to live with it, and we get our enjoyment out of the day, no matter what we’re put up against. Even me, to a degree, as much as I hate rain.

However, I’m out of town right now, down here in Westchester County, and it’s somewhat different. It was pretty cloudy all day here, and all I heard was how cold and gloomy it was. People weren’t smiling; I wasn’t really used to that, because I’ve seen very little of it while I’ve been out of town. Then again, this is the first truly rainy day they’ve had in the last month. There was one period when it rained 15 minutes one day, then the sun came back out, and another period where it rained overnight; I almost missed that one.

There’s this thing that says we’re all supposed to be responsible for our own feelings. Sure, outside factors might influence them to some degree, but how we deal with those negative outside factors tells more about how we’ll deal with anything bad that comes our way. Do you see big problems or little problems; how will you solve those problems, no matter how you feel about them? Will you even try if you see them as much to big?

Try asking us how we deal with all the snow. Who remembers the blizzard of ‘93, when we already had upwards of 5 or 6 feet already on the ground, and the flooding that followed a month later? Who remembers the microburst on Labor Day ‘98 that knocked power out for some people upwards of 3 weeks? Who remembers the ice storm of 2003, days before the Syracuse Orange won the NCAA national championship?

We got through; we persevered. What few of us really did was complain; it was just another day. And after each one of those events, the sun came out; there’s the major lesson to be learned.