lucy in the sky with diamonds

Living lucy in the sky with diamonds through the Blizzard of '07

February 18, 2007 By our readers found at http://www.timesargus.com 

As luck would have it, I was unable to start my truck for a dead battery. As it also happened, many of the snowplows had gotten stuck. I waited for the plow to uncover my driveway, which had snow drifts up to five feet high; but by 6 p.m. he wasn't able to make it and my shift was to start at 7 p.m. The roads, too, were knee-deep.

I made a call to the Mountain Top Inn and spoke with Jay Kerner. I explained the situation to him and he apologized in advance for placing me on hold. When he returned to the phone, he told me that I should be seeing the snow cat coming up the road at any minute and that behind him would be a smaller truck to re-energize the battery in my truck. And sure enough, there was the enormous snow-grooming machine I usually see on the trails of the Mountain Top Ski Touring Center coming up the road and into my long driveway.

My father (who had come up from Massachusetts to ski Killington and ironically was unable due to too much snow) and I watched in awe as Rodger Hill maneuvered this vehicle with its bright lights and large girth, making piles of snow taller than I at the edges of my driveway. Josh Vautour, driving close behind, pulled up to my truck and used his jumper cables to restart my truck.

After big smiles all around and thanks which I extended from myself and on behalf of the hospital and the intensive care patients, they were off into the night, their lights fading as they made their way back to the inn.

In a heartbeat, these three heroes cleared the way for the sickest of our community to receive the often unexpected and critical attention they would need through the night during the Valentine's Day snowstorm.



Dave Carter of Montpelier got around on skis:

What I found so fun was that with the plows unable to keep up with the storm I was able to telemark ski down my street. Unable to use my car, the snow enabled me to cross-country ski into town to get dinner and a movie. Everyone was so friendly and there seemed to be a greater sense of community than normal.



Joel DeLary of Northfield witnessed a small drama:

Thursday afternoon while cleaning my driveway for the second time, a small blue car had stopped right in the northbound lane on Route 12 on Main Street in Northfield. After a few minutes had passed the car was still stopped so I walked up the roadway to offer assistance.

Behind the car was the town plow and by now several other cars. When I approached the car a middle-aged reluctant man, obviously not a Vermont native and very surely not a U.S. native, cracked his window and said he couldn't go any farther because he was too scared to. I explained to him that he could not just stop there and that there was a side road just 50 feet ahead and that I could drive his car there if need be, but he flat-out refused. As he still sat there, an irritated and I am sure exhausted town worker laid on his air horn with no avail. Again I offered to move his car and finally he very slowly crept down the road while stopping several more times. I have no idea what became of him.



Walter Carpenter of Montpelier heard music in the snow:

Perhaps the immortal Beatles said it best. I thought of their song and phantasmagoria "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" as I snowshoed down the street where I live in downtown Montpelier, trudging through snow on the streets and the sidewalks that was already, by early afternoon, nearly waist-deep. The streets had been bare the day before and there had been almost nothing for snow banks, the results of the unusually paltry winter that has given much cause to wonder about what humanity is actually doing to the planet that is its only home.

Then the snow was so deep that with snowshoes on I was wading through banks already above first-floor apartments. The snow fell so thick that it seemed like there was just white and gray all around. It reminded me of the thick clouds of volcanic ash that rolled over the city of Olympia, Wash., where I was living back in May of 1980 when Mount St. Helen's blew up and the city seemed cut off from everything except itself. Now the gray sky had blown up with white and in Montpelier, and all over Vermont, the snow was so thick that it seemed like that gray fog years ago cutting us off from everything except ourselves with nothing else beyond.

I hummed the first line of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds": "Picture yourself on a boat on a river, tangerine trees and marmalade skies," as my webbed shoes trudged over the parking meters beside the Kellogg-Hubbard Library, and up to City Center and into the intersection as the traffic lights beeped us across — pedestrians, cross-country skiers, snowshoers all mixing in together under the gray and white with the buildings and traffic waiting at the lights just visible in the background. The snow seemed to be filling up in the streets as fast as the plows could push it out.

I had great fun on Langdon Street snowshoeing past Buch Spieler Music, Onion River Sports, McGillicuddy's Irish Pub and in the back parking lot back there. Then I swung up State Street and was on a snow bank almost higher than that front window at Capitol Grounds. The customers sitting there looked at me rather strangely while I waved to them with a big smile on my face.

Which one of us was that Lucy in the Sky? Was it real or surreal? People were stopping at a store or restaurant, taking off their snowshoes or skis and going inside, coming out and going off again almost as if this was normal.

Later on, of course, there was the hard work of the storm. With my snowshoes still on I helped a woman unearth her car and lent a hand to help push other cars out, repaying all those people I never knew who have helped me out in the past when I needed it. It was beautiful and crazy, wild and wonderful, one of those experiences to remember in the years to come.

Elton gears up for b-day show with best-of lucy in the sky with diamonds

Elton John will celebrate his 60th birthday with a March 25 concert at New York's Madison Square Garden, and two days later, Island will keep the party going with the first single-disc package of his greatest hits.

"Rocket Man — Number Ones," will also be available with a bonus DVD featuring 10 videos and performance clips, including "Bennie and the Jets," "Rocket Man," "Your Song" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," from the NBC special "The Red Piano." Additionally, the DVD features the video for John's new single, "Tinderbox."

The 17-track CD rounds up all the usual suspects, from "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," and "Philadelphia Freedom," to "Tiny Dancer," and "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me."

John's Madison Square Garden show will be turned into a TV special.

Here are the rest of the tracks: "Bennie and the Jets," "Daniel," "Crocodile Rock," "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," "Island Girl," "Don't Go Breaking My Heart," "Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word," "Sacrifice," "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," "Your Song," "Rocket Man," "Candle in the Wind," "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting."

— Billboard.com