it was one of those weeks

(Amarillo) Many of the hapless citizens of La Ciudad Yellow were reminded of the great and catastrophic Thursdays of history—Black Thursday, Maundy Thursday, the “terrible, stupid Thursday” of Douglas Adams’ classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy—when they awoke on the morning of 30 January. No one had gone to bed the previous evening planning on being buried in snow—and therefore no one awoke early enough to do all of the things you are meant to do on such mornings. No one was able to adequately warm up their cars, for example, or scrape their windows, or leave themselves plenty of time to get to work. Consequently, the roads were filled with cars, pick-em-up trucks and SUVs hurtling out of control at their usual morning speed—about five to ten miles per hour over the limit—but doing it on ice, and with drivers who were cold, unable to see, and attempting desperately to call their bosses on their cell phones. In a house not far off Hillside and Bell, a city employee was pulling on his coveralls, spilling coffee and yelling at his wife: “What did you do with that dang ole snow plow?!”

“You said you weren’t going to need it any more this year and put it in the garage, under the grass seed!” she screamed back. Fifteen minutes later, the snow plow fishtailed out onto Bell Street and headed for the expressway—but by then it was far too late. That evening, trying to excuse the carnage and his profession’s role in it, beloved folksinger/weathercaster Doppler “Dave” Oliver broke down into a disturbing rant that was none too helpful. He variously blamed the weather on “God,” on “goldernit-we-done- fergot-it-was-winter,” and on “if-you-don’t-like- the-weather-in-the-Panhandle- wait-five-minutes-it’ll-change” and then started calling up viewers randomly selected from a hopper and asking them if they had a church home. NewsChannel 10 viewers were soon treated to the sad spectacle of “Walt” Howard gently escorting the confused weatherguesser off-camera.

Once away from the lights and cameras, Walt shoved Doppler into the teleprompter. The producer rolled his eyes. He had better things to do. Potter County Tax Assessor-Collector Robert Miller had lost it during a press conference the day before, scowling and demanding to know why the county was funding the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone. He had a better, cheaper plan to redevelop downtown, he insisted. He had had an epiphany. Real cities, he harangued the local media, world-class cities like New York and San Francisco, when they wanted to improve their downtowns, why they just tore down a landmark! Outside the Santa Fe building a wrecking crew waited. Miller stormed out and led them off toward the old Colbert's Harry Holland building in Wolflin Village. Nevermind that Wolflin wasn’t downtown. Already in the Village, Amaristas were lining up to be the first inside the doors of the combination convenience store/ bank branch/ nondenominational church that would soon be built on the location.

As his entourage passed the County Courthouse, Miller high-fived Deputy Ken Farren, who was just then having his electronic ankle bracelet removed. Farren had just been declared Not Guilty With Hearty Congratulations and A Cold Six-Pack of Bud by a jury of his peers (six indicted officers of the law having been found relatively easily in West Texas), and he was loudly conducting his own press conference. He would, he insisted, devote the rest of his life to tracking down the real users of prisoners for yardwork. Oh, and he was still running for sheriff. It was awkward and confusing, as vows on courtroom steps go, and no one really knew what he was talking about, but it was one of those weeks.

spacedark