Ice Age

Local pedestrians will have to consult their hymarx on glacier-fording and pray for no snow--at least for the remainder of this winter. The Cambridge snow disposal department, reaching for the collected works of a strong figure in the naturalist school, former Mayor Russell of Cambridge, says that as far as ice deposits on "unimportant" Cambridge streets are concerned, "God put it there and God will take it away." Coming in an era of atom bombs, Mark I automatic calculators, and, of all things, snow removal machines, such an attitude seems to take on definite defeatist implications. One might even attribute a philosophy of life to it; but unfortunately the situation is not so simple nor complex as a set of beliefs built around a snow version of the axiom that what goes up must come down. No, the answer is simply that a shortage of labor and equipment exists that cannot be remedied.

With only four snow-eating machines at its disposal, the high command of the Cambridge Street Department attempts to clear main thoroughfares and streets serving hospitals and churches once a snowfall has stopped. Thus, by the time the snow platoon reaches an unimportant lane off the beaten path--Holyoke Street, for example--the unpleasant melange of snow, slush, and mud has frozen over with two-foot sink holes and ridges at appropriate intervals. It is now too late. A regiment of men would be needed to chop out the ice by hand, and more scientific means prove futile. Salt removes the street as well as the ice, and flame throwing devices only turn the dirty brown mixture an oily black. Only an act of God, such as the recent quick thaw, can bring relief to the Cantabridgian who longs for the ice-free avenues of such a relatively southern metropolis as New York. When one is in Cambridge, one must grin and bear and take a long historical view.