Local NBC news channel (WBIR), you have just about lost me as a loyal viewer! I am weary of the “extended” news coverage about a storm that barely happened, tired of watching hapless newscasters dispatched to local neighborhoods to report on patches of ice and bored with looking at photos of people’s backyards. You try too hard to be locally dominate and you have become quite dull. Add in your nightly habit of reading viewer email comments to fill 2 hours of airtime and you send me in search of real news. CBS is looking pretty good right now, just enough local coverage! And yes, the fact that I know this means I have watched too much snow coverage. End of rant, or not…
On Thursday, January 28, the Knoxville News Sentinel showed up at my dad’s door to interview him and photograph his paintings. The interviewer asked such questions as “how many paintings have you done in your life,” “how many are you working on right now,” and others along this statistical line. Now, if you are an artist with your mind on creating, you do not keep a tic list counting past paintings, especially if you are 86 and have been painting for decades. Anyway, the article was scheduled to run Saturday morning if pictures from the snowstorm did not dominate and, well we know that 2 inches of snow is enough to usurp anything else the paper may have planned (sorta like WBIR). Below is a photo that was taken by a New Sentinel photographer and uploaded to the on-line Knox News.
Pete Smith in his studio (photo by Knoxville News Sentinel).
If you have made it this far, it’s pretty clear that I am disappointed with the amount of snow we received. While much of the city shut down before the first flake fell, we had a lot of rain mixed in with our snow so the accumulations was no big deal. Unfortunately, there was no sledding for me. Now for some of my own documentation of the storm of the decade that almost happened.
The snow began around 3:00-3:30ish on Friday afternoon. By evening the ground was covered and the snow kept coming!
The snow was wet and heavy but in the morning light, we discovered the the streets were really just slush and traveling was no issue.
I took a ruler out to the front yard and measured only 2″ of snow. By this time, a light rain and snow mix was coming down.
A morning trip to Market Square revealed a very deserted plaza. A few restaurants were open and several hearty souls were out to get their morning coffee.
