After unbelievably beautiful autumn weather, winter finally arrived shortly after Christmas, only a week later than its official calendar date. Here on the Maine coast, we awoke to find the ground covered with a layer of fine white snow and by 8 o’clock cancellation announcements were already extensive here on the Maine coast.

We’re a septuagenarian and a Maine native which means we’ve seen more than our share of winter weather, since we’ve never been a snowbird. We stay right here and take it, like any dyed-in-the-wool Mainer (or Mainiac, as we’re called by some).  While we’ve seen some winter storms which could well be called beauties, we know they don’t begin to compare with some experienced by our parents, grandparents, and those who came before them. They tell stories of snow so high they could only get out of their house by tunneling, or crawling out an upstairs window. They’ve seen the harbor here in Boothbay Harbor frozen solid enough to hold a horse and buggy. Stories of the roads being impassable for days have been repeated enough times to convince most of us that they were true. In fact, thanks to the Boothbay Region Historical Society, we have records to prove the severity of many old-time winters, and Barbara Rumsey has written about them frequently in her Out of Our Past column in this newspaper.

So, what’s our point? It’s that the current generation has become soft. The least bit of snow on the ground, and they panic. True, we don’t have the benefit of horse and buggy, which folks could once depend upon to carry them through waist-deep snow, but we do live in an age of snow tires, studded tires, and 4-wheel-drive vehicles designed especially for winter driving.  We also have much better roads and sophisticated public snow plowing equipment to improve safety.  It appears that the response to a snowstorm in today’s world here in Maine should be “Stay home,’’ which could be repeated a lot during a typical snowy winter.

Our winters are milder (we hope they stay that way) and have spoiled us so much that if the weatherman predicts a few inches of snow, we tend to cancel everything. While it’s understandable to postpone special events which are dependent on a large turnout, we truthfully can’t understand why so many of our public places close their doors. They’re usually the ones that close rather than individual businesses. In the 50-plus years we worked in an office, we can count on one hand (with fingers left over) the number of times our office was closed for the day.  If transportation to or from work was a problem for someone, we saw that those with vehicles capable of making the trip provided taxi service. The same was generally true for other private businesses in town. We’d much rather drive on snow-covered roads than when it’s freezing rain, which to us poses the most dangerous driving situation.

We were disappointed that our first storm of the season prompted the closing of both the YMCA and the day care center, leaving working mothers with few options — they usually don’t get paid if they don’t work — and with school vacation, despite the bad weather, we’ll wager a guess that some young folks would have found a way to get to the Y. It’s hard to believe that transportation for minimal staffing isn’t possible for either facility when it snows. We certainly wouldn’t find it acceptable if our hospital or urgent care facility shut down during a snowstorm, would we? How about our supermarket or gas station?

It’s probably a good thing we don’t live in the Rockies or Alaska or any other parts of the country that get slammed with multiple snowstorms where they measure the total accumulation in feet, not inches.  We might have to cancel the winter season completely, hunker down, and wait for the spring thaw.