My New Year's Wish

We have made our way to distant planets, seen quantum leaps in telecommunication and demonstrated the capacity to clone. We have automobiles that park themselves, and tell us when we have lost our way. We can (almost always) control unmanned planes from thousands of miles away, and we continue to make wondrous medical breakthroughs. But somehow it remains beyond our comprehension how to create man-made snow if the temperature rises above approximately 28 degrees. For a skier living in the northeast, this is an unfathomable oversight.

As we try to absorb the realities of global climate change, and understand the complexities of el nino and la nina, I struggle with one quintessential question: am I going to be able to ski on Lucifer's Leap or Downspout this weekend?

For those who don't share my passion for skiing, I must appear frivolous, self indulgent and somewhat ridiculous. What kind of person spends almost every day between the end of November and the beginning of spring in obsessive review of the weather forecast? I care about the plight of my fellow man. I love pets and cry at sad movies. I am a Democrat. So, I am not without my redeeming features. Yet, my mood rises or falls predicated on the percentage chance that Christmas will be white or New Year nasty.

Is it too much for me to ask that we spend some of our vast intelligence, and just a penny or two of our accumulated wealth to cure my plight? Can we please come up with some simplistic invention that would allow me,  who asks for nothing more than a good pair of skis and a place to use them, for such a spot, day or night, warm or cold?

My wish as the New Year begins is for peace on earth, good will toward men, and bountiful snow on Lucifer's Leap and Downspout throughout the year. Not necessarily in that order.