The Porch: Winter driving, dripping and draining edition

Five minutes later, “He did advise he did make it to Oak Street and is westbound now.”

Fine, but since when did 9-1-1 turn into Priceline?

MANNA UNHAPPY RETURNS (or, “plower” of positive thinking)

Jason Ives posted this on Facebook Feb. 7: “I’ll be hosting an emergency prayer meeting TONIGHT to ask God to stop the snow. However, I’m also preemptively canceling it due to hazardous road conditions.”

His friend Jim Kline rejoined, “Think of it as manna.”

HOOVES WOULD HELP: Two guys stand 20 feet apart at ends of a foot-wide barely-shoveled section of Heights sidewalk. To the right is a snowbank, to the left a five-foot curbside gully of six-inch deep water.

So one guy backs up to a clear spot and lets the other guy make his way. Second guy says, “It’s like a deer trail.”

WELL DONE: Who was that doing the shoveling honors at two of Hood River’s busiest sections of sidewalk? Library Director Rachael Fox on State Street in front of the library, and Big Horse/Horsefeathers owners Randy and Susan Orzeck, in the Overlook Memorial Park plaza.

SNOW-UN-SNOW: “Music has been my saving grace,” said guitar man Dave Henihan, of snow-days time spent playing, and gigs lost and gigs found (Providence Heart of Gold, I Hate Cancer Concert).

“The thing about this winter is we’re going to see a lot of liver disease.” — Heard at the north bar of Double Mountain Brewing Co.

“The mounds are a build up of snow (photo at right) over the last two months plus snow continually sliding off our roof. I think we all will go mad if this doesn’t come to an end soon. I’ve been telling relatives to look for bodies when Spring comes … if it ever does!!” — Ellen Shapley, Hood River

WELL SAID: “Courtesies cannot be borrowed like snow shovels; you must have some of your own.” — John Wanamaker

NO PITY: First week of January, a guy sees his neighbor bundled up and walking his dog and asks, “How’s it going?”

Neighbor replies, “I’m thinking of Mexico.”

First guy: “Oh, when are you going?”

Neighbor: “I just got back,” and ambles away, nothing more to say.

POOR VISION: A driver stops on Serpentine to ensure an escape route for snowshoers who are walking downhill on the inside of the blind curve — NOTE: do not do this — when the car behind honks horn. Lead driver leans out and says, “Sorry to hold you up,” to see the second driver jumping out of his vehicle, in the lane of traffic, to brush away the mounds of snow that all but obscured his windshield.

NO HUB SNUB — Man traverses crosswalk at 13th and C Streets, looks down and pulls from the snow a wheel cover. He knocks off the snow, examines it, and walks half a block to his car, sizes it up on his wheel, sees it does not fit, and places the wheel cover on the ground tipped up against a fire hydrant, then walks back to his car. He starts to get in, suddenly looks back, returns to the wheel cover, picks it up and puts it in his car, and drives away.