TRADITION - HOW IT'S MADE - 4 EXAMPLE -- :-)

This is a hot link to bishops Hanchon's blog

Yer gonna luv it.  The picture on the page here is one of the rarest things that you will ever see.  This picture was snapped by the good bishop of Detroit, Michigan, USA,  in Rome, on February 3, 2012.  He had better keep it for a long time because the wonder of it will not be seen again for quite a while.  Not if the laws of probability hold up anyway.  Talking about probability, here is a surprising thing about this particular effort of mine.  I was going about my business today, trying to catch up on stuff that had caught up to me from behind.  You know what I mean..."the faster I go the behinder I get."  But as all this was happening to me, or I was happening to it, I can't yet figure out which, I thought of the time that it snowed overnight in Rome.  I thought of it because the snow caps not too far from where we reside had just been refreshed a couple days ago and I thought of the Brazilians, Malagasy's, Filipinos, and various and sundry others from equatorial zones who were studying in the Eternal City who were having their first encounter with the white stuff from the sky.
So, based on that thought, here are two quick little fairy tales.
1. When we arrived in Rome, in October, one of the first things that we learned about the school schedule at the university was that there were no days off, except for November 1 + 2 and the Christmas season.  But there could be an exception...only one.  If the cupola of St. Peter's was ever covered with snow, tradition dictated that there would be no class sessions that day.  Now that was somewhat encouraging since it is generally known that Rome is at nearly 42 degrees north latitude.  About the same as New York.  What is less generally known is that the marine influences and other mysterious Italian Leprechaun machinations, it hardly EVER snows in Rome.  If you doubt that, Google this:  "Snow covered cupola of St. Peters, Rome."  Good luck.  
Since when that phenomenon happened while I was in my fourth year of Theology, I did not have a digital camera.  I didn't even have a camera.  There was a large accumulation of snow that time because it snowed all night.  St. Peter's was BEAUTIFULLY white.  Well, we knew that we didn't have to report to classes.  Wanna know a little secret?  The whole and entire city of Rome plus we don't know for how far around, just hibernated for three whole days while the sun did its damnedest to melt 5 inches of snow and open the place up again.  Nothing, repeat, nothing moved.  Classes?  Even the Jesuits couldn't make this stuff go away.  They call that a tradition?  It's the 100 year storm, that's what it is.  You don't have to be polite.  Just call it was it is.  I don't know why I thought of this, except the hills around us here.  I wonder about the coincidence of the snow in Rome just about 8 weeks ago and this thought.  Life is funny that way, I guess.  Heee.
        x/x/x/x/x/x/x/x/x/x/x/x
2. Remember, I said it snowed all night?  How'd I know that?  Easy. My classmates from those equatorial zones wouldn't let me retire.  We were on the roof top going crazy watching grown-ups acting like 5 year old children.  They thought that the angels and saints were shaking the dandruff out of their hair.  There were two guys from Spain, two from Brazil, four from Madagascar and the rest of us were grown ups from temperate zones.  If it had not been about 28 or 29 degrees F I think some of them would have taken some clothes off to rub it on parts of them where the sun rarely shone.  They were throwing it all over the place, rubbing it all over themselves, throwing themselves on the floor of the rooftop patio, sending us inside for more coffee, more towels and more blankets because they were so cold.  Fortunately for them it was a rather "cold" snow and not one of these freak sub-tropical storms when the ambient temp sits at around 33 or 34 and everything is soupy.  Nope this was a very wild 6 or 7 hours, I kid you not.  I wish the classmates that I have in Madagascar could read English.  I'd send this to them so that they could remember it too.  One of the interesting parts of the memory are the questions that they asked about snow.  How can you ski on it?  Why is it slippery?  How do you learn to play in it?  Why aren't the cars below moving?  What makes them slide out of control?  Can you "drink" it?  In your country do you go to school when it snows? [You do!]  
Some of them changed clothing twice and three times through the night.  They were sorely disappointed when it got to be about 4:30 or 5:00 and the snow stopped.  I thought they were going to cry.  
It was a good thing.  Reveille was 5:30 anyway.  So we ran downstairs and got ready for the morning prayer.  We had warned them that the Swiss Director of the house was not going to be impressed by a mere 13 centimeters of snow.  13 meters, maybe.  Nothing less!  So, droopy - eyed 20 somethings plodded their way through morning meditation and Mass that day.  The Swiss director was nice about it.  He did tell us not to venture too far away from the compound because the authorities were hoping that there would be few people out and about while they were sweeping the city clean of this strange white stuff.  I kid you not, Rome was paralyzed for three days.  5 inches!  St. Peter's wore the mantle for slightly less than two days, despite the fairly cold weather.  We think that the copper made it melt more quickly despite the fairly cold ambient air temperature.
I have many fine and fond memories about Rome.  This is one that always, always, makes me smile when it occupies my aging gourd.