To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. Western New York Winter Survival Strategy #11 Gallows’ Humor One of the first casualties of winter survival is always our sense of humor. Winter has a long list of aggravations specifically designed to make you lose it. Sometimes it’s a puddle of ice cold slush just a little deeper than your boots are tall. It could be triggered by the fact that every other school on the planet has declared a snow day–except yours. Or it might be set off by a sadistic snow plow driver who seems to wait just around the corner until you’ve finished shoveling your driveway before speeding past and dumping half the snow on the street back on it. The solution is to get the last laugh–not necessarily by telling knock-knock jokes, although they sometimes do help, but by realizing that we all weather the weather together. It’s figuring out that if you had to slog your way to school, so did your teachers and the principal. And since they rarely live anywhere near where they teach, they’ve had to trudge in from even farther away. It’s freaking out your neighbors by using excess salt you’ve saved all year from kimmelweck rolls to melt your sidewalk ice. And as for the snow plow driver who is actually just doing his job, the next time he rolls by, wave him over and offer him a piping hot cup of coffee. What this strategy lacks in humor it easily makes up for in good karma. Left: A fresh layer of snow at the Buffalo & Erie County Naval and Military Park gives a whole new meaning to Cold War page 89