Thu 19 Nov 2009
My one-and-only ice storm
Posted by Mikaele under Travel
[2] Comments
I was reading a novel the other day which included an ice storm in its plot. Now, I essentially spent my first 20 years growing up in Salt Lake City, Utah, so I’ve had plenty of opportunities to experience snow and ice as well as Utah’s deep “powder” at places like Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Park City … but up to now I’ve only been in one ice storm [such as the one pictured at right]:
I’ve forgotten the year, but back in the 1980s when I was working in the Polynesian Cultural Center’s Sales and Marketing office in Waikiki, I was sent in March on an American Airlines travel consumer show to Raleigh, North Carolina. The long flight into Raleigh had actually been delayed several days by a very bad storm, and ours was the first allowed to land one very foggy morning. Much to my surprise, everything was heavily covered with ice, as in the picture at the right. I mean, as I drove out of the airport in my rental car I saw an inch or more of clear ice sealing in cars, power lines, signs, and so forth. In fact, lots of power lines had succumbed to the extra weight of the ice, likewise tree limbs had snapped off under the extra burden.
It was quite fascinating to me. But then, after just a little while, a more interesting aspect of the ice storm started…
I was picking a couple of ‘ulu [breadfruit] the other day from my neighbor’s tree that hangs over into our yard . . . and it got me thinking about the bright green little ‘ulu tree that President Eric Shumway and a number of others planted during the Church College of Hawaii/Brigham Young University–Hawaii jubilee celebration in 2005 near the cafeteria entrance and the sidewalk leading back to the dorms. As members of the Jubilee steering committee, we all felt the symbolism of the ‘ulu carrying into the next 50 years was perfect: An ancient Polynesian staple, beautiful tree, long-lived, prolific, multiple uses of all parts of the tree, etc.